


The Age of Frost

by BakerStreetMuse



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - 1970s, Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, FrostIron - Freeform, Glam Rock, M/M, Not Safe Sane and Consensual, Recreational Drug Use, Sex Drugs and Rock and Roll, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:24:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 74
Words: 65,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakerStreetMuse/pseuds/BakerStreetMuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frostiron. It's 1973. 19 year old Tony Stark, whose living on the road and out of his car with his best friend Pepper after a falling out with his father, falls into the glam rock scene courtesy of one beautiful and strange Loki Lauff, who lives dangerously and is more dangerous than Tony can even begin to imagine. Warnings for drugs, sex, violence, the slowest burn, & rock n roll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost?

Fuck.

Originally that 'fuck' was breathed out in an irritated smoke-white sigh on the part of one Tony Stark.

That was three weeks ago.

Tony Stark is damn good looking, and he knows it. He's gone from the fuck so skinny he fit neatly between the math textbook and the history textbook so outdated that it hadn't been updated since four years before segregation was outlawed, in a locker that smelled like mothballs and sweaty jock-straps, to a goddamn brick house. It didn't matter how much he liked star wars or machines or experimenting with them. He can kick the snot out of anyone.

Chicks dig that.

So much, in fact, that, at only nineteen, he's punched more v-cards than Bruce Lee had punched people in the face.

So the fact that his sort-of-maybe-kind-of-girlfriend is so stuck on this Loki Laughs and his Frosty calendars (and has been for a month!) when she should be stuck on him makes him want to switch professions, from professional V-card puncher to professional face-puncher.

"Did you know that he's English?'

Asks Pepper at least three times a week. And the way she says 'English' sounds more like she's really asking if Tony knows that Loki Lauff is some kind of bonafide alien sex god from the planet Ass.

Tony starts picturing Yoda covered in writhing, wiggling penises and starts to feel slightly sick.

"I mean, outside of his record I've never really heard him talk, you know? I bet it sounds so cool, you know? And he plays like four instrum…."

Tony can see Yoda rising from the swamps of Dagobah covered in writhing, wiggling penises, swamp slime cascading off the heads and being flung all over the walls of his minds' eye.

"I think this Mary J is English. I could ream a dude for a scone." He says and physically cowers a little lower on the park bench, to keep the swamp discharge on the walls of his mind's eye to a minimum.

"And, like, I heard he, well, he writes all of the band's songs and it's all about this tragic character, it's like Shakespeare and he's so intellectual about his music…"

Tony closes his eyes, lights up, inhales, and returns to his thoughts about the be-cocked Yoda. At least it's not girl talk with Pepper. He'd taken them all the way to this secluded park bench under a bridge to smoke a J and hopefully get a base or two—like any Casanova would. It may have only been mids, but he couldn't help but feel like he was wasting his smoke.

"…and he's so tall!"

Pepper says tall like, you know what? Tony doesn't care what she says it like because she can sit on it. Loki Toffee or whatever the hell he's called can be intellectual or english or made of goddamn stardust or be from the planet ass or whatever he wants to be, and Pepper can moon over him till time clocks out, but he cannot be tall.

All 5'8 of him feels ready to explode.

Tony thinks he must have teleported or something, because the next thing he knows he's standing by the duck pond and Pepper is calling after him. He feels her hand on his arm and shoves it off. She tries to talk to him but he doesn't want to hear it.

A part of Tony figures he should be used to coming up short.

The becocked Yoda in his minds' eye chortles at the pun and he bangs his head against the steering wheel.

'Bad brain!' He mutters to himself before tossing a "I hope you and the Iceman are happy together." At Pepper before trying to drive away. She's holding onto the door.

"Tony! Stop! The park's miles away from anywhere! What he fuck are you doing?" She calls and he shrugs before speeding out of the parking lot.

It takes Tony about three hours to realize what an asshole he was, but by then he's half asleep on the bar at some Tavern or another, with a bottle of beer half in his hand and half out. He's doing his damnedest to clean the place out. It's almost midnight by the time he remembers that he can't afford to do that anymore.

At this rate he's going to have to move to a new city just to be able to get into bars at all.

He bangs his forehead against the bar, hoping to concuss his animal brain into silence for at least fifteen minutes, and starts to plan his escape.


	2. Chapter 2

It turns out after hitting the sauce so hard that a steak would be jealous, Tony Stark becomes a real nowhere man.

His plan of escape had essentially consisted of pulling a runner, and then getting into his car and pulling a driver.

Tony isn't sure if language works like that, but he does know that every last inch of his body hurts.

The sun is bright, and the ground is hard, and his brilliant plan had pretty much been thrown out the window when, before he could even set foot on the bar's porch, a couple of guys had literally kicked him out the door.

It turns out the owner's friends didn't take kindly to his shit.

Tony looks like he's had a passionate love affair with a crowbar. He's limping and half of his face is swollen. He can hardly even figure out how to get into his car and he's just spent a half an hour digging around in the gravel of the parking lot for his keys. He swears half of the skin on his hands is gone.

He's driving somewhere but he's not sure where. And isn't that just the story of his life? He feels like he's gonna keel over any second, so when he sees the San Ardo diner pop up out of the grass like another weed in the middle of a sandy garden, he pulls into what he guesses is supposed to pass for a parking lot.

He also promptly passes out…only to yanked out of sleep god knows how long after by something banging against his car door.

After a moment to take stock of his confusion, Tony rolls down his car window to see a slender, middle aged woman with greying gold hair and an apron standing outside his car with her hands on her hips.

"You alright son?" She asks and Tony thinks thats a stupid question, but he keeps his thoughts to himself.

"I think?" He says and moving his lips causes the bottom one to re-split. He can taste blood and he grimaces.

"To heck you are, Jimmy Sellers says you've been parked out here all day. You been knocked out all this time?"

"Yes ma'am." Says Tony stiffly, without trying to move his bottom lip. He's been driving around south long enough to know this type of woman, and how you address them.

"Get out of that car, young man! First your going to clean yourself off. Then we'll see about getting you some food." Her skin has been turned to leather by the sun and it makes the blue of her eyes shocking. Tony doesn't know if he's ever seen anyone who looks exactly like her.

"I don't have any money. They probably took it, ma'am."

"Don't play the sympathy game with me, honey! They didn't take nothing you didn't owe Dick Amarillo and his tavern anyway. Oh yes, in this town of a couple hundred news flies. Don't think you can pull one over on Lucille Rainey!"

"I'm sorry ma-" Tony begins and the next thing he knows he's being bodily yanked out of his car by Lucille Rainey, a woman who doesn't look strong enough to lift a heavy sack of rice.

"And about that payment, a rough and tumble gentleman like yourself ever wash a dish?"

Tony begins to think back before realizing that a salt-of-the-earth woman like Lucille wouldn't appreciate any kind of answer along the lines of 'Daddy Stark had servants for that'.

"Yes, ma'am." He says. Lucille Rainey talks and talks as she shows him around the inside of her small diner. It's not jam-packed, but its comfortably full and reasonably clean. He manages to catch something about it belonging to her family before he's deposited in a small bathroom.

"Picking up strays again Lucille?" Tony hears someone say as he manages to steady himself against the sink.

"Oh sit on it, George."

"At least this one doesn't have rabies. That cat was foaming at the mouth. And the blood hound you found on the highway before that couldn't have smelled a raw steak if you dropped it on it's head."

"Ha ha George-"

Tony turns on the faucet and drowns out the noises of George and whoever else. He swears he can hear every pipe in the building creak as the water flows into the sink.

It gives him an idea.

Almost nothing makes Tony Stark happier than having an idea, so when he finally leaves the bathroom somewhat clean he feels pretty good and mostly human. In fact, he's five minutes to whistling as he strolls out into the dining room.

He doesn't know what could have happened over the course of the 20 minutes to turn everyone in the diner from disinterested or slightly bemused by him being there to clearly disappointed in him.

Tony doesn't know what he's done but he knows that look, and he doesn't like it. He feels the inclination to whistle curl up and die somewhere around his diaphragm.

"Young man!" Calls Lucille Rainey as she plonks a plate of pancakes so mammoth that just looking at it makes Tony's stomach cramp in front of a little boy half it's size. "Is your name Tony Stark?"

"Err…yeah? Yes, ma'am." He corrects.

"Is Howard Stark your Daddy?"

This time Tony isn't too stoned to realize that his anger is misplaced, and he simply nods.

"Why didn't you say so? The Stark scholarship for Science and Mathematics put one of my babies through college! He's an engineer for Stark Industries in Houston! You can have anything you like on the house!"

Firstly he realizes he must have read a lot of disappointment that wasn't there, because everyone seems just short of clapping for him. Secondly he realizes that the fact that he can't even escape the poltergeist of Howard Stark in a hick town (Population 600 and waning) in the middle of the desert in California makes him want to burn the place down.

Thirdly he realizes that he's starving.

"I told you that was that Howard's boy." Says the voice Tony recognizes as George and he looks over to find a man with a round beer belly and a bushy mustache. He's like if Santa Claus fell out of a bottle of whiskey every christmas.

"Thank you ma'am." He says and sits down in an empty booth in the far corner. He starts absently playing with the silverware. Whether he likes it or not he's like his dad and his hands are itching for something they can play with, take apart, and put back together. They'll settle for nervously fondling cutlery.

"Rumor has it he cut you off. That true, boy?" Asks George and Tony clenches whatever he's got in his hands until they turn white.

"Now George, mind your potatoes-"

"I heard he cut you off till you get your act together, and judging by the mess you made of Dick Amarillo's place last night I'd say you're doing just fine!"

Tony feels almost euphoric knowing he's going to tear this George a new one. He's halfway out of his booth to rip the guy's mustache clean off his face when something clangs to the floor next to his foot. He looks down and sees that it's a knife. He then looks at his hands and sees the fresh blood welling up. He realizes that he was holding the knife the wrong way, and suddenly he just feels tired. He crumples back into the booth.

"Can I have some pancakes, Mrs. Rainey?" He asks as he presses his bloody hand against the table top, just so he doesn't have to look at it.

"Surely, you'll have to wait a bit though, I've got two orders before yours and Peggy's out sick today."

The name Peggy turns to Pepper in his head and before Tony knows what he's doing he's ready to run out of the restaurant and start looking. It's been about a day since he last saw her and god knows where she's ended up. He's halfway to the door when he feels a hand on his arm.

"Now, young man, you've had a bit of a time. You sit and eat your food."

"But Pepper-"

"Whatever it is we'll worry about it after you've got some food in you. I even set down the local paper for you, give you something else to think on while you wait."

"Yesterday my…friend Pepper and I had a fight and I haven't seen her since!" He insists, unable to keep the vulnerability out of his voice and Lucille Rainey's eyes soften.

"All them rich boys are alike, ungrateful little sons-of-bitches. Can't be bothered to do a thing right." Mutters George and Tony is about to do something drastic, but the look in Lucille's eyes sends him right back to his booth.

"I'll call Al Ruiz for you, he's the Police Chief. He's always got an eye out. You sit down and relax honey. I'll take care of everything."

For the first time in a long time Tony Stark genuinely wants to thank someone for something. Before he can do it however, the object of his gratitude has bustled away, and is rapping one obnoxious whiskey soaked Santa Claus on top of his bald head.

Tony is starting to feel like things might just start looking up. A part of him realizes its somewhat irrational, but he feels like there's nothing Lucille Rainey doesn't stick her nose into that dares to not straighten itself out.

Then he opens the paper and promptly slams his head against the table top.

Loki Lauff has caught the local parish's eye as a corruptor of youth and wager of grievous sin on white bread american ideal. There is a nearly page long article listing his offenses and showing pictures of him in the kind of outfits that would probably have gotten the stuffing kicked flat out of him if he wore them in any other circumstance.

Before Tony remembers that he hates the guy on principal, he's kind of intrigued.

His eyes fall on a picture of the long, lithe man with his arms outstretched and head thrown back, his collar bones and the tendons of his neck pulled taught in stark relief. His long black and blue hair is almost in a bee hive and he's got glittering gem-studded and almost sculptural pieces covering each of his nipples. His nails are painted silver and the silver peters out halfway to his elbows. He's painted on a pair of the fullest red lips Tony has ever seen and he…he hasn't got any eyebrows!

Tony is only stuck on the lack of eyebrows for a moment. Who does that? People need eyebrows! They are the cornerstone of any decent face! The captions, proclaiming the man a homosexual and a deviant, quickly take his attention however.

He feels the need to do a victory dance. A homosexual would never be interested in Pepper! His internal victory dance skids off of cliff onto jagged rocks when he realizes that Pepper is going to most likely murder him for being such an asshat when she's found, and then it won't matter how gay or not not gay Loki Lauff is.

Then he comes across the part of the article where it warns parents against letting their innocent children attend Loki's ungodly smut-fest, in Los Angeles, in approximately one month's time.

Tony's victory dance rolls out of the jagged stones that killed it and is resurrected in a flash of heavenly light. If he can get Pepper tickets to that ungodly smut-fest she'll have no choice but to love him forever!

Tony shoots a smirk straight at George just to piss him off.

Howard Stark's money behind him or not, let it never be said that Tony Stark is not a genius.


	3. Chapter 3

"Tony, can you come in here?"

Lucille calls from the kitchen, and considering that she sounds exasperated and borderline sardonically amused rather than worried or in the middle of earth-shaking sobs, Tony doesn't think he has to de-spring his step any.

The diner is small and in a matter of seconds he's standing next to Lucille Rainey, whose got her hand pressed against the phone.

"There's been a bit of a problem-" She starts, and stops herself mid sentence when Tony's heart physically almost seems to fall through the floor. "Nothing like that, honey. They've got Pepper at the station and she's fine, but there's been kind of a misunderstanding-"

"Misunderstanding?"

"Well, one of Al's boys picked her up early this morning. Found her crying on the side of the road. At first they thought something bad happened, but when she kept insisting she knew you personally and that you'd been driving her around, well, I mean— you have to understand Tony, that does sound pretty crazy-"

"What did they do with her!?"

"Now, you relax. I told you already, she's at the station and she's been there all day-"

"They arrested her!?"

"They're just holding her for now-"

"I need to get her out immediately!"

"Tony-"

"Oh my god they've probably-"

"Now don't you go using the lord's name in vain Anthony Stark!"

Tony felt the sarcastic reply bubbling against the backs of his teeth, but he could tell from the look in Lucille Rainey's eyes that she meant it and expected an apology.

"Sorry ma'am." He says and she nods before taking her hand off of the receiver and pressing the phone back to her ear.

"Now, you've really done it this time Albert Ruiz." She says sternly with a wink at Tony and he might think he's actually just a little bit in love with her.

"You've probably gone and terrorized that poor girl for nothing at all. Made her out to be a liar for no good reason. I've got Tony Stark on the line right now. Here."

Lucille Rainey drops the phone into Tony's hand and he stares at it.

"I'm sure you know how to use a telephone."

Tony presses it to his ear. "Umm, ah, police? Hi?"

"For pete's sake! And I thought you were smarter than that blood hound."

"Hi, This is Tony Stark, ah, you can let my friend Pepper out. Turns out, funny story, she's not some crazy homeless chick pretending to know me; I mean, not that I could blame a wacko homeless chick for pretending to know me because, of all the people you could pretend to know I'm probably in the top five percent world wide of people who you would want-"

"Stop talking about how great you are and come get me out of here, jerk off!" He hears Pepper call and he breaks out in a grin.

"Comin atcha dollface, soon as your pancakes are done I'm booking." He yells into the receiver and he hears the police chief groan.

"Nobody even says dollface anymore, what are you, fifty?" She yells back.

"If by that you mean 'Am I a distinguished gentleman?', then yeah."

"Tony, I swear I am going to-"

"Do you or do you not want pancakes?"

He hears Pepper mumble something on the other end of the line and then he hears police chief Al Ruiz repeat what he'd said.

"Can I get those pancakes in a box, Mrs. Rainey?" Tony asks and the woman nods. He leans back into the phone. "Tell Pepper I'll be there before she can think of another thing to call me."

Police Chief Al Ruiz had started to say something, but Tony had slammed the phone back down before a full syllable could escape.

"You've certainly got a way with people, Tony."

"I'm plenty charming, Mrs. Rainey." He insists and she shakes her head with a fond smile. Before he knows it he's got a box of pancakes in his hands, and directions to the local police station in his head.

"Can I take the newspaper, too?" He asks and she puts it on top of his pancake box and ruffles his hair.

"It's that Loki Lauff isn't it? The whole world's crazy over him. But, then again, I guess the world's always crazy over something. He'd be a handsome boy if he didn't tart himself up like that. It's strange."

Tony says nothing.

"I want the both of you back here right away, Tony Stark. No more trouble."

"Yes ma'am." He says and limps out of the diner.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony has noticed that a lot of women seem to have this innate thing for things that look like they need help; and he wouldn't say he's necessarily exploiting it if he makes his limp more of a pained stagger when he walks into the police station, which is more like a basement that has been inexplicably detached from its house with a desk and three holding cells glued up inside it.

He can tell that Pepper is angry, but after taking a look at him she's definitely more worried than mad. He counts it as a win.

"You look whacked out! What happened?"

Before Tony can milk it Al Ruiz opens his mouth and Tony knows his only out was just taken out back of the station and shot in the head.

"Drank Dick Amarillo out of house and home and then couldn't pay for it. They didn't give him anything he didn't deserve." Says the police chief and Tony can feel A) that the man doesn't like him and more importantly B) That Pepper doesn't like him that much right now either.

"So, it's back to this again, huh Tony?"

"Look, I'm cutting you loose, and I got you pancakes. Can you read me the riot act without Smokey over here breathing down our-"

"Yeah, let's piss off the cops-"

"Cop, actually-"

"After this you are driving me straight home! And then I never want to talk to you again!"

Al Ruiz has unlocked the cell and Pepper stomps toward Tony, takes the box of pancakes out of his arms, and then completes her exit.

Tony looks toward Al Ruiz and The Police Chief looks right back at him. Tony doesn't know what his mouth is about to do but it's gonna be outta-

"Don't say a word to him, dillweed! Don't give him any reason to arrest you."

Tony waves at the police chief before sulkily dragging his bruised foot out of the station, right behind Pepper, who has already climbed into the passenger seat of his car through the open window. She appears to be stuffing pancakes down her throat, and Tony wonders if she's even tasting them.

He puts his key in the ignition and starts to drive.

"I can't fucking believe you, Tony. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Tony's default mode is sarcasm. He keeps his mouth shut.

"You ever been to wherever the hell this is before? No! And Neither have I! How could you just drive off and leave me in the middle of nowhere and nothing where I don't know anyone? And then go get drunk! You promised you were done with that shit! You wanna hit a hard 25 and die in the bottom of a bottle? You are the world's biggest asshat, Tony Stark!"

The world's most pregnant silence ensues.

"Look, babe, I-"

"Don't call me that!" It would have been more threatening if her mouth wasn't stuffed with pancakes, but Tony gets the point.

"I know that what I did was…was…"

"Was what, Tony?"

"…"

"Tony."

"Pretty shitty."

"Understatement of the century."

"Yeah, I know, but men are like that, you know? You gotta take the bad with the good, so I want to do something good for you."

"Unless you've figured out time travel I don't see what you could do."

Tony feels the newspaper under his feet and maneuvers until he's got it in his hands. He tries to pass it to Pepper and ends up successfully dunking it in syrup. Pepper watches him squirm.

"There's an article about Loki Laughs in there. What this local preacher has to say is pretty screwy, but only read the last paragraph."

Tony knows the second that Pepper has read the relevant sentence.

Her high pitched scream of glee nearly causes him to crash his car.

"Loki Lauff is coming to L.A!" She cries again and again.

"Are we going Tony?" She asks and he smirks.

"Depends on if you're still here Pep." He says and her face pales to white. Tony wonders if she is actually going to kill him.

"Pull the car over." She demands and Tony does so. He wants it to be known that he faced his death bravely.

"Get out." She says, the second they are pulled over and Tony does. Pepper follows with the box of pancakes in one hand and the syrupy newspaper in the other.

The next thing Tony knows the sensations of his balls being turned inside out and the taste of the most delicious pancakes he's ever had are strangely juxtaposed. Then he realizes he's laying on the ground and that howling voice is his.

"You…you kicked me in the balls!" He says minutes later and his voice is at least an octave too high.

"How are we going to afford the tickets Tony?"

"Tickets?" His voice is still too high, and he's seeing sounds and he thinks he might throw up.

"For Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost. Unless you were lying." The unspoken threat that she'll squash his testicles out of existence if he's lying is enough to have Tony cupping his family jewels and wondering if there actually could be a god, for just a second.

"There's this…this…this diner down the road. Piping's all screwed. I'll fix it and collect the bread. We're just a couple of odd jobs away from all of your dreams coming true, babe."

Pepper is sitting on the ground, unconcerned as you please, gingery hair glinting in the sun, licking syrup off of her fingers like a lazy cat.

"And you know how it goes, one place finds somebody with half a brain willing to teach a toaster it's place on the cheap and suddenly everybody in town's got something they need fixed up."

Pepper does know how it goes. They've been doing it all over California for a month and a half, and what she doesn't understand is how Tony still doesn't know. It's his name that gets the gigs. Everyone wants Howard Stark's son's hands on their stuff.

In Mendocino a man had poured nine entire cans of beans under the hood of is car and acted like it's invalided state was the mystery of the century. Tony didn't bat an eyelash.

If it all didn't make Pepper so sad she'd be impressed.

"Your tool kit's in the trunk, boss." She says instead of thinking about it. She watches as Tony's entire face lights up. He tries to spring off of the ground before his body's ready and if it wasn't for her, he wouldn't've made it up at all.

"I'm gonna start wearing a full suit of armor around you." He groans as she helps him waddle toward his car.

"Like a knight?" She asks as she opens his car door for him.

"No, man, chivalry's dead."

Pepper shoots a contemplative look at his crotch and Tony feels a physical pang of agony. He swears he feels his balls breathe a sigh of relief when she closes his doors.

"Like one of these." He taps the red outer-door of his car and strokes it absently as he Pepper gets in the passenger side. "Only it'll fly. And shoot lasers. And have a clam bake button in the helmet I can touch with my tongue! And it will automatically electrocute crotch-shot taking maniacs."

They share a laugh, and they have spent so much time together that they nearly share a singular kind of bark.

"Come on Captain Clam Bake, it's time to go fix the plumbing. And then go fix this deadly 'I don't have tickets to see Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost' problem I got. "

"Heroically!" Insists Tony as he puts the key in the ignition.

"Yeah man, heroically."


	5. Chapter 5

The first thing Tony realizes about Loki Lauff is that his fans are quite literally insane.

And he hasn't even gotten to the concert yet. He nearly got killed by a hoard just buying the tickets.

And it wasn't even a hoard of huns or stampeding elephants.

As far as he could tell, it was a hoard of mostly girls between the ages of 16 and 25 in sci-fi heels with blue and orange and green hair, glitter going from their eyelashes to eyebrows, and clothing in colors he wasn't even sure existed.

There was also one guy, in a business suit and heels.

Tony was pretty sure the guy grabbed his ass when he wasn't looking.

He also wasn't sure whether he was wearing the business suit or the heels ironically.

Needless to say, all of this had him less than stoked for the actual event. The show is tomorrow night, and he's been inhaling cheeseburgers ever since he bought the tickets.

So that would be four days of him working toward a glorious death-by-cheeseburger.

In fact, he currently has three on the way and Pepper is looking at him almost sadly.

"Don't like your malted?" He asks and Pepper shakes her head.

"Pepppppeeerrrrrr." He trills and she says nothing again.

"Is it because he's queer?"

"What?"

"Your Loki Laughs-a-lot. You afraid he'll like me better?"

"Tony-"

"Because, I couldn't really blame him. I mean, look at this face. I mean, and it's attached to the rest of me, which is pretty friggin ace—"

"Do you have something against the year 1980?"

And Tony is lost. He's kind of been calling himself Captain Clam Bake in his head since Pepper laid the title on him. He thinks that if he's Captain Clam Bake than Pepper is The Loop Thrower.

"Because sometimes I think you hate it so much you don't want to live to see it."

"I haven't had a drink in three days! And you were pretty rocked too on Tuesday so I don't see-"

The waitress plonks down his cheeseburgers and Pepper's fries and cuts out. Tony attacks his food with unholy glee.

"Man, replacing beer with cheeseburgers isn't—"

"Shhhhh." Says Tony through a mouthful of burger. Half-masticated meat falls out from between his teeth and Pepper grimaces.

"A chorus of heavenly angels are singing in my head and I can't hear them over the sound of you worrying too much."

Pepper sullenly dips a fry in her malted and lets it go.

"So, did you know he's like a mime?" She asks.

"Who?"

"Loki Lauff!"

"I thought he was some sort of queer space alien musical genius shakespearian tragedy thing."

"Well, he is! But before that they say he was a mime! They also say he was a buddhist monk! He also answers all of his fan mail himself! Every last letter! He really appreciates his fans you know and…"

Tony nods in a place he suspects might be relevant before turning his attention back to the gloriously hot and cheesy burger in his hands. Once Pepper gets started on Loki she could go past the end of the world. Possibly the universe.

He thinks that she still doesn't have the kind of feelings for Loki that he has for cheeseburgers.


	6. Chapter 6

The anticipation is eating Tony alive.

He's seen pictures and posters and look-a-likes of Loki Lauff nearly smother L.A. in a cloud of androgyny and strange colors and partial nudity. It's like the bastard is everywhere.

He doesn't know it he wants the concert to start or he wants it to be over with but he does know that if he has to stand in line for one more fucking minute he's going to literally explode.

"Tony." A far away voice says. It's more like a buzzing fly than anything and he hardly hears it.

"Tony." This time it comes with a gentle poke in the ribs. He looks to see Pepper standing next to him, looking worried.

She's dressed in something white that's kind of like a dress only it glows ungodly bright and half of her body is covered in glitter. She's got on one of the slightly bee-hivey Loki hairdos he remembers from the preacher's article in San Ardo.

The worried look denting the purple swirls on her painted face is borderline surreal.

"I'm just mellowed from that J. Relax, Dollface." He says, even though if they don't open the doors soon he's going to have to do something drastic.

"I told you, you should have put something on."

Tony looks around him. It turns out being the only guy in denim in a crowd of people who think they are human disco balls is not the most comfortable feeling. He's like a sore thumb wearing a neon sign. He looks like a narc.

"Am I embarrassing you, babe?"

Pepper shakes her head. "Well, you could unbutton your shirt a bit more or some-"

"You could definitely do that."

Tony looks behind him, and if he wasn't so bad with names and faces he'd swear it was that dude who tried to steal handfuls of his ass last time. He looks back at Pepper and she's glaring daggers at the guy.

Tony smirks. "You heard the man." He looks at Pepper. "Unbutton me!" She rolls her eyes and undoes a single button.

"Happy boss?" She grits out and he undoes the rest of the shirt and throws it up in the air. It doesn't come down.

Tony looks up and sees what could be a guy or a chick sitting on the roof with his shirt draped over his head.

"Hey!" But before he can finish the figure is gone in a flash of pale skin.

"Shit! That's my only shirt!" He cries and the next thing he knows there's silvery white glitter falling from the sky. For a single hysterical second he wonders if its snowing in LA. Snowing glitter?

Then he realizes its largely focused on him and whoever happens to be around him, and it's petering out. The dickweed that stole his shirt thew it off the roof on him.

Tony's got pearlescent glitter in his hair. It clings where sweat from being trapped in the crowd has clumped his eyelashes. His chest and shoulders are glistening with glitter and sweat and suddenly he feels much more at home. He looks up at the roof to at least flip the guy the bird or something, but he's already gone.

"That was nice of him." Says Pepper. "Getting you in the spirit."

"For what, a white christmas?"

"Sit on it Ton-OH MY GOD THE DOORS JUST OPENED!"

Tony grips Pepper so tightly that he's digging in his nails as they're buffeted toward the doors.

If it didn't hurt so badly she would smile.


	7. Chapter 7

The opening band is some chick with a gap tooth, sitting on stage alone playing a guitar and warbling about how she likes her weed exotic.

While Tony totally agrees, he doesn't think she counts as a band.

She's either too drunk or not drunk enough to be good. The audience definitely isn't drunk enough to not notice.

Halfway through her set some girl who looks to be about nine starts screaming for Loki Lauff. The next thing Tony knows he's kind of afraid it's about to get violent. The next next thing he knows Pepper is screaming like she's been possessed by the devil.

"Come on jerkoff, if you don't cut the fashionably late shit someone's gonna get killed."

Tony has narrowly avoided getting his feet impaled on a pair of criminally tall heels when suddenly every light in the entire venue is killed.

There is a moment of collective silence, like the break before the storm, and Tony can't breathe. He feels himself being shifted and moved by the crowd. Usually being lost in a haze of smoke is his preferred state of being, but here he feels claustrophobic, and blind, and he doesn't know where his body is going. In a brief moment of panic he can't help but wonder if the dark ate Pepper.

"Pepper!" He calls out and he swears at least three guys elbow him in the ribs, and someone pinches his ass.

Apparently silence is some kind of unspoken code at these things.

In the darkness a single dissonant, eerie note on an out-of tune piano is pounded over and over and over again. Every arrhythmic tap sends a chill shooting down his spine. It's like his every bone is a stretch of blackboard with a single claw-like fingernail digging trenches across its surface.

Every last one of Tony's hairs is standing on end and he's nearly crossed the line from fidgeting into shivering when, an eternity later, a single beam of blinding white light shoots clear through the void of darkness and silence.

It slices through the audience in staggering waves. Tony can see bits and flashes of things he can't process. He feels dizzy. He doesn't know where to look, so he closes his eyes.

'Open your eyes." Says a soft voice and Tony feels it linger in the shell of his ear as his eyelids fly open.

The stage is empty. Tony's confused. Then he notices everyone around him gasping and pointing upwards and when his eyes follow their hands Tony forgets how to breathe.

There is a man, naked as the day he was born, bathed in white light, and bound in gold ropes and leather, hanging from the ceiling hanging just out of arms reach. Tony reaches his hands up anyway.

"Hello Darling." Says Loki Lauff again, in that soft dangerous voice, as if with every word he's somehow daring you to do something outrageous.

The crowd goes absolutely wild.

"Now sssssssh." Says the man and they all fall dead silent.

Tony wonders if he's some sort of Jedi or something, because he has never seen that work at another concert in his entire life. At other concerts the band goes "How are you dudes tonight?" And apparently the audience can only communicate through incoherent vowels, because that's all they do.

Loki Lauff exists outside of that universe, in a single beam of blue light in the void, lounging in a leather hammock like it's a red velvet bedspread.

The thought of that skin against the red, red like his car, the thought of all that white skin and those long limbs spread over the hood of his car—

"Fuck." Says Tony and, once again, at least four people elbow him.

"Maybe…" Says Loki Lauff and the audience screams. He peers down through a hole in the strips of leather and his eyes are green and lined in something so black that it turns the whites of his eyes luminous and his skin to marble.

A long hand reaches down and Tony reaches up. That single shock of white skin turned blue at the wrists and tapering down to impossibly slender fingers makes Tony ache. He's standing on tip toes and the crowd is trying to push him down to get at Loki first but he won't let them and the tips of their fingers are a hairsbreadth away in the blue light—

Loki snatches his hand away. Tony wants to bang his head against the floor.

"…later." Loki nearly purrs and it takes Tony a good twenty seconds to remember that he was finishing a thought from earlier. "This has got to be something to remember. I'm going to take this one slow."

The audience screams and this time Loki doesn't stop them. He rolls around in his hammock, basking and stretching like a cat in the sun.

It's not until Tony catches a glimpse of what he think might be the single biggest cock he's seen in his entire life that he realizes that the void has suddenly become peppered with mirrors, and light is spilling forth like water in every direction.

"Jonce?" The cat calls from his leather perch and suddenly the room is filled with thunderous melodic crash and bellowing of a church organ. It nearly shakes the walls and Loki seems to roll in the sounds like he can physically feel them. Tony vaguely registers something happening on stage, but he can't look away from Loki.

"Let's be sensible and start at the beginning, hmmm Jonce?"

"Cool-city, yeah?" Says the so-called-Jonce, presumably. Tony doesn't have a fuck to give him.

"Track one off of the Rise and Fall of Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost: Five Lifetimes."

Tony swears the room drops twenty degrees and he can see his breath as, from somewhere far away, someone begins to drum.


	8. Chapter 8

Someone has got Tony pinned against the stage.

He's tall and got a hand on each of his hips and is grinding against him. Tony's not sure if he's reacting or not. He can feel glitter sliding down his torso, face, and arms in trails, caught in his sweat.

One of his shoes is missing.

He's got one hand gripping the top of the stage and a girl he's never seen before that has purple dripping out of her hair is clinging to the other. He's had a hit or two of at least nine different joints people have been passing around, and he's sure one of them had a sprinkle or eleven of something extra in it, because he can see the bass line and it's bathing the stage in flashes of red. Everything feels wonderful. A part of Tony's brain keeps vaguely worrying at his two possibly broken toes.

He feels stubble against his ear.

"Want up, puppy?"

"Up where?" Tony asks and he feels a chuckle brush against his cheek like thick fingers.

Suddenly he's on top of broad shoulders and the thickest head of gold hair he's ever seen is tickling his stomach, and sending sparks shooting up and down his spine.

He moans and he feels the body below him shake a little as the man chuckles. Tony feels like he's on top of a volcano.

"You're a strong volcano." He tells the man beneath him and he feels another full body chuckle.

"Rumble rumble rumble." Says Tony.

"You're too adorable for your own good." Says the volcano and Tony turns his eyes to the stage, which he now has a perfect view of.

"Want to be a pal and hold this for me?" Tony feels a cup being put in one of his hands. He smells it. Beer.

"Such a puppy." Says the volcano and Tony downs what's left in the cup and tosses it somewhere.

Tony suddenly feels something like cold and realizes that whatever Loki is playing on acoustic guitar, alone in a single beam of light center stage, feels like winter.

"Daughter Death waits in the wings."

And before he knows it he and the entire audience are singing it back to Loki, in an almost reverent whisper.

"Speaks of senseless things."

As Tony sings his hands wind into the mane of golden hair between his legs. It scratches his palms and he can't help but let out a long, low groan in the eons of silence between Loki's call and the audience's answer.

Suddenly Loki's eyes are on him and Tony doesn't know if he's hot or cold, but he's burning with something. He flings out a hand.

"Her script is you and me…" Whispers Loki and the audience bellows

"BOY!"

The strength of it shakes Tony. He's not sure if he's getting hard or not, but he feels hands creeping up his thighs and Loki's looking right at him and then suddenly everything starts vibrating again.

He doesn't know how long it takes for him to figure out that the man beneath him is laughing again.

"Like that Puppy?"

Tony guesses that either he's kind of hard or the guy is referring to something that he couldn't give half a fig for because…

The band comes cashing in around Loki and suddenly he's smashing the acoustic guitar to bits and ripping his costume to shreds. He's taken off his patent green leather heels and is using their razor thin points to split the seams of his shirt and Tony doesn't even know what noises are coming out of his mouth.

Even without the heels Loki's legs go on for eons.

His pale skin is revealed in slashes, pale bleeding out into the world through cuts in the silvery green material he'd been wearing.

The banging and strumming and wailing is apocalyptic as Loki peels the tattered remains of his outfit from his body and collapses to the stage with a dramatic, almost victorian faint.

A single one of his white hands reaches for the microphone, which rolls right into his fingertips, and suddenly everyone is screaming.

Loki seems to bellow every note on every scale in quick succession, let out in a primal howl as he crawls, naked and gleaming and make-up smeared across his face, toward the edge of the stage, right toward Tony.

Tony feels a thousand other hands and arms trying to push him out of the way, but he holds firm. He's going to touch Loki Lauff and nothing is going to fucking get in the—

His brain derails as wet heat encloses around two of his outstretched fingers. His eyes follow the source of the heat and nearly fall out of his head.

Red, wrecked, lips with rouge smeared halfway across them are wrapped around his fingers and the flat of a tongue is…is….writhing against their soft fleshy pads and flicking his knuckles in time with the drums.

The bass suddenly looks like lightning and Loki has started to hum into the fucking microphone while sucking his fingers like they're candy and he can suck the sweet out.

The audience is humming with him and Tony feels like his body is gone and he exists solely within that droning hum.

When that mouth is gone and the hum ends in a screaming 'oh' Tony feels like he's been unplugged.

Loki winks at him before strutting toward the other end of the stage and Tony falls off of the man's shoulders. He hardly feels it. He doesn't even realize that he's fallen until two people are helping him up.

"I am Loki." He says, back to the audience and head over one shoulder. He's naked and lanky and pale and smeared with paint and completely unconcerned. He looks like he could step into the air and float away. "And the Age of Frost is upon you!"

Tony's throat is raw but he still screams. The audience's collective scream is deafening.

"You're welcome." Loki drawls before sauntering off stage, long black hair waving like a dark banner behind him as he saunters away. The band follows.

Tony and the audience have been screaming for an encore for what feels like years when suddenly Tony feels a hand on his shoulder. He follows the sensation to a red glove and a suit jacket that looks something like victorian wallpaper if it had dropped acid and been hit by a truck.

"You're wanted back stage, Jack." Tony hears and he follows the vaguely british sound to a fat, mustached face.

"But what about the encore?" Asks Tony and the man's smile splits his mustache almost in half.

"You must be new, eh Jack? Greener than a tree in spring seems to be how he likes 'em though."

Tony doesn't know what to say. He thinks about telling the man that his name isn't Jack before deciding that it doesn't really matter.

"Follow me if it pleases the court." Says the man and Tony does as he asks. He's led through the crowd and out a door he didn't even know was there to a ladder on the side of the building, leading to the roof.

"Says he'll be up there when time suits him, got that Jack?"

Tony nods. He looks dumbly between the man and the ladder.

"Well, up you get." He says and Tony does what he does best, he puts one foot in front of the other and almost manages not to fall flat on his ass.


	9. Chapter 9

Tony doesn't know how long he's been on the roof, but it's been long enough for him to sober up enough to realize that he's half naked, covered in sweat and glitter, and that he's ditched Pepper for the second time.

"But she'll have to understand." Tony says to no one. If Loki Lauff had called her back stage—er—up roof— she'd've ditched him in half a second. Tony's got no doubt about that, and now that he's seen the man play he can understand why. He sits on the edge of the roof and lets his calves and feet dangle as if swinging on a hinge.

The fact that the city of Los Angeles bustles around him unaware of what's about to happen seems almost impossible to Tony.

"Come on, Loki." His voice is raw from singing at the top of his lungs. "I haven't even met you and you're already driving me nuts."

Tony is ready to scratch his skin off. He feels like the wait is steadily killing him. He'd moved from hysterically wondering what he was even going to say to the man to contemplating throwing himself off the roof just to escape the wait.

"Quite the view, isn't it?"

Tony knows that voice and he's going to die and he can feel his heart punching his kidneys and some kind of inhuman noise trying to bust open his teeth and escape and when he looks down at the grey trashed street he thinks 'What view, exactly? England must be really goddamn dismal if this is Loki Lauff's idea of a view'.

And then he looks over and sees the man himself standing by the one door leading to the roof. He's wrapped in a silvery fur coat and his black hair is slicked back behind his ears, but poking out in spikes which spill onto the fur. A green and silver cigarette holder as long as a child's arm is dangling from one of his long white hands, and Tony can suddenly see him on the front of a Vodka bottle.

Then he realizes that Loki isn't talking about the street at all. Tony suddenly finds himself wondering if his mother was right about the devil after all.

Tony swears he can see a city of gold in those eyes. A city where the rivers run with wine so old it's nearly dust.

A chill runs down his spine and he swears he can feel one of those long hands scratch playfully against his skin, mapping whatever's beneath and turning it to simple sensation.

"If you like concrete." Says Tony, because even when he's too stunned to think the sass rolls off him like oil on a duck, and if he takes his time walking toward Loki, and walks like he's shedding invisible layers of cloth just to watch those green eyes burn, well…

"You look familiar." Says Loki Lauff as one of his impossibly long hands curls around Tony's side, the thumb nearly hooking his waist and touching his back and his long fingers sear lines against his spine.

He is impossibly tall, each line of his body stretching on longer than the last, and Tony wonders what the hell they feed them in England.

"It's funny," Says Tony and his glib falls flat. His voice has been cracked open and split, desire is oozing thick between his teeth.

"What's funny?" Loki's voice is half a whisper and those slender fingers are tracing the slim, barely there muscles beneath Tony's darker skin, the nails scraping so lightly Tony almost can't feel them, and it's like a whole new kind of buzz.

"I was just thinking the same about you." Says Tony and suddenly his hands are being pulled through fur and through silk and against cool, naked skin. The hands around his wrists are long and slender and strong, they nearly dwarf his own, and something about the power he can feel thrumming there sends Tony's brain straight off line.

"How old are you?" Asks Loki and it takes Tony a good few seconds to realize that he asked anything at all.

"Ah…umm….19." He finally manages and suddenly there's a hand the size of his skull curling in the hairs at the nape of his neck and tilting his head all the way back and a chuckle against his throat. The brush of lips is like a brand.

"You're just a baby."

Tony wants to make some kind of retort but suddenly he discovers that every nerve in his entire body is connected to some spot behind his ear that Loki is worrying at with his teeth.

He feels the fur of Loki's coat sticking to his overheated skin and a hand slowly curl around his entire hip and this slow burn is unlike anything he's ever felt. Those fingers tap thoughtfully at his ass cheek, in some unknown rhythm, and Tony feels himself disappearing inside it.

"I had considered having you right here, on this roof."

For a second Tony swears he's gone blind.

"But after hearing the noises you make I don't think I could bear to keep you quiet."

Suddenly Tony realizes that someone is moaning and whining like a bitch in heat and he thinks that he must have gone deaf hours ago, because how could he not have heard the sounds coming out of his own goddamn mouth.

"Oh god." He breathes out as two fingers close around his nipple and tug and—

Tony almost feels criminally cheated for not knowing about that before, or he will later when he's not too busy keening and close to sobbing.

"Yes?" Asks Loki with an expression like he's making a clever joke, and Tony wants to understand it, but he wants those hands back on him even more. Suddenly Loki's smoking again from that ridiculous cigarette holder. It's dangling from between his fingers and Tony wants to be that bit of silver and green more than he's wanted to be anything in his entire life.

He can't breathe.

"Got a name, baby?"

Tony thinks he must have one. In fact he knows he must. He wonders if he left it somewhere. "Ah…ummm…Tony." He says.

"Oooh. Italian?" Asks Loki and the way he says it combined with the lustful gaze he shoots solely at Tony's crotch makes Tony suddenly feel like he's standing naked in front of the entire state of California.

And that they're going to eat his penis.

Tony isn't about to correct Loki.

He manages to stay still, but he's blushing like a child caught out of bed too late. Suddenly his bare feet are incredibly interesting.

Tony's always been the hunter, remember? Punched more V cards than Bruce Lee punched people in the face, remember?

When Loki looks at him like he's going to swallow him whole Tony forgets how to breathe.

"Oh, I'm going to enjoy you." Purrs Loki and Tony doesn't know what to do with himself.

"You ever been to the Bellisade, baby?"

The most expensive luxury hotel in the city of Los Angeles? Tony was conceived there. He had one of his childhood birthdays there. He doesn't remember which one, but he knows it happened. One of his nannies told him.

His warm brown eyes flicker from beneath his eyelashes before returning to his toes.

"No." He says softly and when Loki smiles Tony is reminded of a shark.

He is suddenly conscious that his body rushes with fresh blood, and the only thing separating it from Loki can be pierced with a safety pin.

"Well, we're going to get you nice and familiar."

One of those long white hands is sticking out of the silvery-white fur and Tony grabs onto it only to be pulled against a cool expanse of long naked skin. Loki is almost a head taller than him, and even when he stands on his toes their mouths barely touch. Tony settles for pressing his lips to that long neck and dragging his nails down miles of miles of spine until he's got both of his hands where he wants them.

He holds Loki's ass in both hands and squeezes.

"Mmmmmmm." Hums Loki and suddenly Tony finds himself pressed against the door leading back into the venue, both of his hands pinned above his head and naked skin keeping him flushed against the splintering wood.

"Now behave." Loki whispers in his ear and it has the exact opposite effect, as suddenly Tony doesn't even know what he wants but he wants it now.

"Never." Breathes Tony and when Loki chuckles against his throat it reverberates throughout his entire body.

"Oh, I do believe I like you."

Before Tony knows it he's being led into the building and down the stairs.


	10. Chapter 10

Tony hardly blinks as he's pushed into the back of an achingly neon green Volkswagen .

He forgets to blink when he discovers that it's purple inside, there's no passenger seat, and a petit man with a ten pound mustache in a flaming red suit is behind the wheel.

"To the Bellisade, Harry." When Loki stretches his endless legs with an orgasmic sigh Tony understands why there's no passenger seat.

"But what about the party, Mr. Lauff?" His voice is possibly the most stereotypically English voice that Tony has ever heard. His mustache twitches and Tony starts to wonder if this is all some sort of pre-death hallucination, and he's actually laying in a ditch in the road somewhere spaced out of his mind.

"Perhaps, later. It's only two. The night is young. Have you got my candy, Harry?"

"Under the seat, Mr. Lauff."

"Far out."

Tony watches as Loki pulls a large silk satchel out from beneath his seat. He opens it and sticks two fingers inside.

"Now Tony, close your eyes and open your mouth."

Tony has a feeling his inability to say no to that voice isn't going to end as good for him as it started, but he does as he's told.

"Do you want to play a game?"

Tony nods and the next thing he knows there is a finger and a pill in his mouth. The finger glides against his tongue and leaves the chalky little round pill behind.

"Swallow, baby."

Tony dry swallows and nearly gags and the next thing he knows the cold mouth of a bottle is pressed against his lips and red wine is being poured down his throat.

He's still coughing when Loki kisses him, and he tastes like expensive tobacco and seems to suck the coughs out of his throat.

"My turn." Announces Loki finally and passes the silk bag to Tony, who only stares at it.

"What are these?" He asks and Loki laughs with delight.

"Could be anything!"

Tony watches, almost unable to suppress his horror, as Loki takes three from the bag and puts them in his palm.

"I like their composition." He announces seriously before knocking them back with at least half of the bottle of wine.

Tony hopes his heart is pounding because he's nervous.

"What did you think of the show?" Loki asks and Tony hasn't a clue what to say. He watches the light of passing cars reflect in those two green eyes and looks at the flash of gleaming white leg through the white fur. Loki puts a cigarette between his lips and lights it for him.

Tony inhales and something about the nicotine unhinges his tongue.

"Transcendent." He says and hardly takes the time to wonder where that word came from.

Loki looks shocked enough for them both.

Transcendent?" He murmurs and Tony nods.

"I've never, I haven't, It wasn't, I just, there's nothing like you. Never has been. Never will b—"

And suddenly lithe soft lips are pressed against his own, moving and tasting and teasing and Tony wants to bite.

He lets his hands work over the front of Loki's coat, trying to find the fastenings, but the infuriating bastard is being no help whatsoever.

Tony's frustrating quest ends with his unoccupied hand tangling with Loki's own as Loki's tongue slides wetly against his own.

"Oi! This's a company car!" Yells Harry and suddenly Tony registers that something's burning.

He's pressed his cigarette through the leather of the seat, and left a smoldering scar behind.

He feels Loki laugh before he sees it, and it sounds like its coming from far away. Before he can wonder why it sounds like Loki's laughing from the other side of a tunnel he's sprawled across his lap, nearly drowning in fur.

"I'm gonna have to keep a tighter leash on you, puppy, you're dangerous."

"Whyze everyone keep callin me that?" Tony's tongue feels heavy.

"Have you seen yourself lately, darling?"

Tony looks at his own hands and it looks like he's looking at them through foggy glass.

"Half-naked and mincing about all alone? Sassy little twink with eyes like they came fresh out of the oven, flirting with anything on legs?"

Tony wants to disagree but he's misplaced his body and he's pretty sure all of the bones he would have used for disagreement are in there.

"You're a walking advertisement. Begging to be housebroken."

There are hands on his collarbone, rubbing circles of electricity which jolt his entire body out of lassitude and Tony gasps and swears he can feel sparks of life itself dancing in his bloodstream.

Those clever fingers are pulling on his nipples and he swears all of that fur is rubbing his skin against the grain when suddenly—-

"Oh yes, just like that." Says Loki. "Nice and loud for me."

It's like Loki can somehow will sound into existence, because it's only as his moans reverberate off of the car's roof that Tony realizes he'd been making any noise at all.

Mmmmmm.

Oh god.

Please.

"I wonder what would happen if I did this."

And before Tony can ask that wicked mouth is sucking and pulling and the point of a tooth is digging down onto his hard and swollen nipple.

The more Loki tugs the more it aches and the louder Tony whines.

"So sensitive." Loki stops to remark and Tony doesn't know if he's relieved or upset that he's stopped.

"Has anyone ever—"

"We're here, Mr. Lauff."

Tony vaguely registers the change in scenery as he's pulled out of the car.

"Goodbye mustache?" He says to no one in particular as Loki leads him into the lobby.


	11. Chapter 11

Needless to say, a 6'2 man in heels, a fur coat, full make up, and with hair down to his waist toting around a shoeless shirtless glitter-plastered teenaged boy who's obviously rocked off his tits, gets quite a few looks in a hotel where the lobby has a genuine marble floor.

Halfway to the elevator Loki has to stop Tony from rubbing his sensitized nipples against the embossed wallpaper and moaning. Tony is determined however, and Loki has to bodily rip him off of the wall and throw him into the elevator.

As Tony lays on the elevator floor, all he can see is shocking green leather heels and white feet.

"Beautiful." He murmurs into the floor.

"What was that, puppy?"

"You're beautiful."

This time Loki helps him climb the length of his body and crashes their lips together. They kiss until Tony's shaking and breathing like he's run a mile.

"Do you really think so?"

The elevator door opens and Tony leaps out of Loki's arms in an attempt to walk and flops out onto the carpet. When he looks up he notices that Loki seems to be swaying.

"We're fucked up." Tony says and Loki throws his head back with a bark of a laugh.

"But we look good doing it. Especially you." Loki narrowly escapes having the elevator close on his coat. "You were born to be on your knees."

To stay true to the spirit of things, Tony crawls beside Loki on his hands and knees, all the way to his room.

Whenever Loki slides one of his cool leather shoes against his bare skin Tony feels it like a kiss.


	12. Chapter 12

Tony doesn't know what he'd been expecting but it hadn't been this.

The very fabric of life is swirling beneath his skin, picking at his seams and spinning him into a state of bliss unlike anything he's ever known before as he lays on the white carpet of a what he thinks might be a hotel room. The carpet kisses his skin and sticks wetly in his sweat as he arches against it, every muscle and tendon in his body pulling taut before relaxing against its plushness.

"Gods, darling." Growls Loki and the next thing Tony knows his legs are being kicked apart. He feels the cold bottom of one of those sinfully tall heels pressed lightly against his sternum. The thin point of it falls in the soft spot between the halves of his rib cage. The toe of Loki's other shoe rests in the space between his legs and Tony rubs himself against it.

"I could watch you all night."

"Better not." Breathes Tony before he grinds just a little too hard against the thick sole of that tall shoe and moans so deep and dark that it makes his hands vibrate.

The next thing Tony knows Loki is gone. He feels cold.

"Loki?" He calls and tries to get up only to end up laying on his stomach, scrabbling at the plush carpet like he's trying to stop himself from sliding down a mountain.

He's sliding and sliding when suddenly there's something cold dripping onto his spine. It's blissfully cool against his burning skin and rips him out of the air mid fall.

"Take those off for me."

Tony can feel it dripping down his ribs and following the curve of his hip bone onto the floor and into his jeans.

Jeans!

Oh.

Tony finds his hands lost in the carpet and picks them up piece by piece. He follows the lines of his own body to his belt loops, where he hooks his fingers as he sways on his knees, so he can't drop them again.

There is a length of cool naked skin holding him up and hands over his own in his belt loops, long fingers insinuating themselves between fabric and skin.

"Don't tease me, Tony. I can't bare it."

Tony registers some sound that's kind of like a gust of wind or a whip cracking and his belt is on the floor. Loki is unbuttoning his jeans and before they are even halfway down his thighs there's a slick hand wrapped around his half-hard cock. Tony fucks into it with a whine.

"Mmmm, no self-control, baby?"

Loki tightens his hand and Tony throws his head back against Loki's chest as those long fake nails rake trenches down his side.

Tony howls.

"None at all?"

There's suddenly a hand under Tony's jaw, maneuvering it for him so he shakes his head.

Tony feels like a marionette with the force of the universe crackling beneath his skin and bones made of water and the fist of god steadily trying to stroke it all out of him.

Tony feels something hard pressed against his back and presses against it.

"I'm going to break you."

Tony's laying on his back and he doesn't know how he got there but when his eyes focus Loki is kneeling in front of him holding a cock unlike anything Tony has ever seen before in one hand and dripping something from a bottle onto it with the other. Sweat shimmering like diamonds pools in the hollows above Loki's collar bones and drips down his chest. Tony wants to taste.

"I'm going to break you into tiny, tiny pieces."

Loki holds his hands up to the light before scratching his way down Tony's chest and pushing his legs apart.

Tony lets out a gasp and suddenly there's a finger inside of him and Tony doesn't know what's happening. He just knows that he feels full and he doesn't know if he likes it.

"And I'm going to put you back together, darling. Just how I fucking want you."

That finger is impossibly long and Tony doesn't know how it's fitting inside and he didn't even know until thirty seconds ago that you could put a finger in there but

"Ohfuckingjesuschrist!"

"Like that?"

Tony decides he is going to have something permanently surgically put right there so that he never has to not feel

"Fuck!"

He doesn't know what Loki's touching but he wants more and before he can answer there's another finger sliding into his body and that spot inside him is being pinched between them and suddenly Tony realizes that he can't feel any of those long fake nails. He just feels fingers and fireworks and fireworks and

"You're so tight, darling."

Those fingers twist and Tony's body nearly comes off the floor as he throws his head back and starts to cum.

Bursts of light shoot behind his eyes as those fingers play and pull with that thing inside him. He's screaming but he can't hear it. It almost hurts and he can't even feel his cock but he thinks his balls might actually be across the room somewhere and he never wants it to end.

Tony murmurs Loki's name softly, over and over again as he returns to earth and those fingers slip from his body. He feels a single one circling his hole and he feels himself quaking against it.

"Anyone ever touch you like this before?"

Tony feels the emptiness inside him like a physical ache and through the lassitude clinging to his skin he barely manages to notice Loki's inquiring single risen eyebrow.

"What was the question?" He manages to ask and Loki chuckles against his skin, deep and dark and sensuous.

Tony feels like led weights are pulling his body into the carpet.

"Need a rest, puppy?" Loki asks and before Tony can even begin to answer he's laying unconscious and naked on the floor of the most expensive room at the Bellisade covered in glitter and sweat and drying cum.


	13. Chapter 13

When Tony wakes up he is incredibly confused.

And he hasn't even opened his eyes yet.

Touch alone tells him that he's laying naked on a bed. He knows he didn't fall asleep in one.

Touch alone also tells him that he's sandwiched between two men, and that the one spooning him from the front is poking him in the stomach with a leaking erection. He's wrapped in a sweaty bar-scented cage of limbs and is halfway to panicking when he feels familiar plastic talons tap against his naked hip.

"Rise and shine, Puppy." The whisper against Tony's ear sends shivers sweeping down his spine. It almost hurts. His body feels like its made entirely of led. He barely manages a groan in response.

"Rough night?"

Somehow Loki's snaked a hand against his cheek and is running those impossibly long nails against his barely there stubble. Every stroke scrambles his mind further and Tony is too busy reveling in that touch wonder at the strangeness.

"Get rid of the interloper and I'll take care of you."

Tony doesn't know what an interloper is but Loki's nipping at his ear and his whisper sounds like it promises everything that Tony has ever wanted. Also, considering there's only one other person in the bed it's not too hard for Tony to figure it out.

After minutes of painstakingly extricating his hand from the flesh cage surrounding him he pokes the guy right in the forehead.

The man snorts a little but otherwise doesn't respond.

"You mustn't be afraid to get a bit more physical, darling."

The hand grabbing his ass after giving it a playful slap is thoroughly distracting.

Tony looks up into the chin of the interloper and realizes that, considering the tangle of limbs they're in, he could totally get away with kneeing said interloper in his family jewels.

The scream the interloper lets out as he flies off of the bed is hilarious, so hilarious that it almost distracts Tony from the slight uncomfortable twinge of his hole as he flexes his muscles to knee the poor guy.

And suddenly it hits Tony that anything could have happened to him while he was unconscious, and considering how he woke up, it most likely did.

Tony's throat is so dry that when he lets out a cry he thinks it might crack open and bleed.

"You scared him!" Cries Loki. With a fluid sort of grace he leaps out of bed, bodily throws the interloper out into the hallway, and tosses his clothes out after him. It all almost seems to happen in slow motion.

When Loki insinuates his long limbs around Tony's body he's still shaking.

"Now baby, hush."

Before Tony knows what's happening he's quieting.

"Did the mean man scare you, darling?"

"Look, I'm gonna be straight with you—"

"Ha bloody ha." Says Loki as he sinks his fingers into Tony's fringe and pushes it against the grain till it stands on end, as if every strand is frayed and slowly coming apart in his hands.

It feels good.

"First, I want some food and sec—"

There's a long clawed finger pressed against Tony's mouth as Loki reaches for the phone and casually asks for one of everything to be sent to room 1105 before dropping the phone back onto the receiver. He leans over and pulls a cigarette and a lighter out of the nightstand.

"And second I want to know if anything happened to my asshole while I was sleeping."

The second it comes out of his mouth he cringes and knows that if he wasn't so exhausted he'd be hysterical.

The unlit cigarette which had been dangling from between Loki's lips falls onto the mattress. His eyes are wide and Tony notices that they look more grey than green. The man's mouth is a perfect O of shock. He looks frozen.

"Well?" Says Tony several minutes later and Loki appears to spring to life.

"We took turns fisting your hole." Says Loki as he throws his pack of matches onto the floor. He tosses his miles of dark hair and walks toward the bathroom naked, his hips swaying. "Come have a wash with me."

Tony is guessing that's a sarcastic kind of 'no', as he can't even begin to imagine how punching him is relevant to anything. He's sure that Loki knows he meant sexually. He squeezes his internal muscles again just to check, and the strain is so slight that Tony decides to worry about it later.

"Did I fingerfuck you deaf?" Loki looks at him over his shoulder and Tony swears his gaze is burning a hole in his chest. "Time for your bath, puppy. You smell terrible."

Tony bounds after Loki into the bathroom, embodying his epithet in every way as he skids onto a marble floor and sees Loki sitting in an in-ground bath tub that's more like a small pool, basking under a tap.

He doesn't need to be told what to do.

How cold Loki likes his water makes it almost impossible for any of the things Tony had been anticipating to actually happen.

He shivers as Loki scrubs his hair and shaves his face for him. He can hardly even enjoy those hands sliding down his body, slick with soap.

When it's all said and done Tony springs out of the bath tub.

"You're no fun."

Tony watches, shaking, as Loki ducks under the water with ease and emerges dripping and entirely content.

"The food should be here soon. See to it. And put on a robe or something. I've got a closet full of things. Choose something." Loki says with a wave of a hand before submerging himself again.

Tony knows when he's been dismissed. He leaves the marble bathroom for the main room, which he honestly has almost no memory of.

It's damn impressive. Everything is white and green and the wall paper is hideous and strangely embossed but that's to be expected. The room is huge and cluttered with ornate gold furniture.

Tony's almost forgotten what it's like to be rich. Though he'd spent the first eighteen years of his life sitting primly in the lap of luxury, he's been living out of his car on and off for a year. If he'd told himself at the age of fifteen, he'd be fucking people just to have a bed to sleep in at nineteen Baby Tony would have probably nailed Fuck-up Tony in the scrotum with a soldering iron.

He takes extra care to squish the plush carpet between his toes as he begins flinging open doors at random. He squishes and flings, at his glorious leisure, until he comes to a walk-in closet.

Tony finds doors to three whole other rooms first. When he opens the closet he's hardly sure what to make of any of it.

There's two fur coats, three dresses, some things that vaguely resemble pants, and a long turquoise corduroy vest with gleaming white buttons that feel heavier than stones.

Tony chooses the last one just because.

When its on and buttoned it looks more like a dress and the top most button falls slightly above his naval.

Tony kind of digs it. In a strange is-it-a-man-is-it-a-woman-who-cares kind of way he feels pretty sexy.


	14. Chapter 14

When Tony opens the door for room service and it takes four guys holding two trays each to bring it all in, and he watches them while sprawled in a purple wing back chair in an ill fitting turquoise vest smoking one of Loki's cigarettes, it occurs to Tony that this isn't how one night stands are supposed to go.

As he lays on his stomach elbow deep in syrup and pancakes, surrounded by a sea of silver platters, and he looks up at Loki, whose lounging on the bed in a kimono telling someone to 'Get another ticket for New Orleans', Tony has a feeling that this really isn't how one night stands are supposed to go.

"New Orleans?" Asks Tony.

"Our next gig. Part of the tour." Asks Loki and he holds out his hand for Tony's cigarette. Tony obliges. "Seventeen cities. Sold out in thirteen of them already. My act's hotter than the devil's left testicle, right about now."

Loki breathes smoke into Tony's face and he inhales around his pancake.

"Ever been to New Orleans?"

Tony has.

"No." Says Tony and Loki's grin is joyful and nearly contagious.

"Well, we're going to get you nice and familiar."

Tony knows he recognizes those words but the memory slips through his fingers. When Loki laughs he does too.

"Also, I know I call you 'puppy', but must you be such a literalist? Sit on a chair at least."

Tony responds by smashing his face into his plate and emerging with almost more than he can chew.

"Can you even taste what you're swallowing?" Loki's voice falls somewhere between motherly and obscene that Tony decides to not even take the time to be confused about how aroused it makes him. In his book, any aroused is good aroused.

Tony downs the pancake with a gulp of milk and sighs happily. He looks up at the kimono-clad rock god through his eyelashes.

"Always." He says and the way Loki's eyes darken nearly makes him drop his fork.

"Aren't you just to die for?" Loki says and holds out a hand. Tony knocks over two glasses of orange juice and a mug of coffee on his way to the bed.

Loki unbuttons his vest slowly and begins to drag his long fake nails over Tony's skin. The hand without the nails plays with his hair.

"About last night," He begins as a jagged edge on his pinky catches the rim of Tony's naval. "After you fell asleep I still needed a little something. And I don't jerk it, baby. Ever. That's why the interloper was here. Originally you were on the other side of the bed. How you ended up between us is one of life's great mysteries."

The golden wonders of a life where you never have to masturbate, because there's someone waiting to take care of your every boner, goes beyond any amount of spoiling that Tony has ever experienced.

His mouth is actually watering.

"I wouldn't let anyone touch you. No one touches you but me."

Tony is confused, because the look in Loki's eyes is terrifying but he can feel his cock twitch, like the man had been speaking specifically to it and its answering back.

"Do you understand, Baby? I'm going to savor you. You're mine, and no one touches my stuff."

Tony nods because what else can he do? There's a hand stroking at his quickly stiffening cock. He groans.

"That's right. I sing for them all. But you sing for me."

Tony pants as he starts to leak all over Loki's fist.

"Going to cum all over my vest, baby? It's designer. Expensive. Dry clean only. I'm going to have you deliver it to the cleaners for me. Hand them over my vest drenched in your own dried cum. They'll know as well as you how it got there. Your entire body will turn positively pink with—"

And Tony cums with a shout and he swears for a second he loses consciousness.

When he regains it he realizes that he has to get better at recovering, because Loki's standing up in his kimono, perfectly unruffled and at ease with a cigarette dangling between his fingers talking to a small man with a gigantic mustache.

Tony is laying half naked and flaccid on a bed with his own cum cooling on his stomach.

Despite being notoriously shameless, even he has limits. With a cat like screech he tries to wrap himself in sheets and only ends up throwing himself onto the floor.

When he looks up Loki downturned look is fond and the petit man looks less than impressed.

"So, how many colors do you think saxophones come in?" He asks and both Loki and the man, who Tony suddenly remembers is Loki's driver, look incredibly confused.

"What? It's the city of Jazz. Isn't a saxophone in every color some kind of law?"

The driver looks offended on the behalf of saxophones everywhere. Loki looks positively charmed.

"They're saxophones. Not crayons."

"Bull shit, I want a red and gold one."

"Can you play?"

"If I had a red and gold saxophone I'd learn real—"

"Gentlemen, we've got a plane to catch." Says George and Tony wonders if he could make it anymore obvious how much he doesn't like him.


	15. Chapter 15

There is something about New Orleans that Tony can't quite put his finger on.

The city is famous for it's parties and seedy underworld and jazz. For fresh sea food and hot weather and French influence and voodoo and a real laid back attitude that you can't find anywhere else.

In New Orleans you can roll into a café hung over at the age of fifteen, sit next to a cop, and have a beer with him. At ten in the morning. Tony knows this from experience.

Tony literally can't put his finger on it because he's been to New Orleans twice. The first time was when he was one or two years old, so for all he knows it might as well have happened to someone else. The second time was when he was fifteen, and he got so drunk he ended up waking up with an African transvestite named Chrysanta in the back of a broken down hippie van with hanging beads instead of a windshield somewhere off Bourbon Street. To this day, he couldn't tell you how he got there.

He then walked shoeless, in the rain, until he found a little café, where he ended up having a few beers, at ten in the morning, with a nearly retired cop named…ahhh

Tony can't really remember.

He has a feeling he's not really going to remember tonight either.

Before the show he and Loki had taken some more of his candy, and Tony's skin feels like it's going to crawl off of his body if he doesn't keep moving.

Loki is on stage, bellowing and dressed in something that looks like a gymnast would wear it if it didn't have lime green pinstripes and giant studded shoulders. He's got his tongue wrapped around the microphone and sounds like he's gagging out notes and the crowd is going positively insane.

Tony is going insane with them.

"I'm a space invader! I'll be a rockinn-rollin bitch for you!" Loki and the crowd bellow together and it seems that while Loki wanted reverence and silence in LA in New Orleans he wants a full out cataclysm.

"NOW SCRRREEEEAAAMMM FOR ME!" Howls Loki mid song and there is violence in his eyes. Tony can feel it in the crowd. Loki struts like a manic street preacher in a lime green pinstripe waist cinching corset and knife-like stillettos as the crowd bays for him like a pack of hungry dogs.

While Loki flowed like water in LA here he jerks and twists and breaks things with a seductive intensity that leaves Tony breathless and almost horrified.

Loki barks into the microphone and suddenly a guitar solo begins out of absolutely nowhere. Loki appears to wrap himself within it as he strikes a number of strange poses, contorting his impossibly long body into improbable shapes.

Then the sound peters out into nothing and Loki falls on his knees, physically shaking.

"Chime child, chime child I can be your time, child. I'll wreathe you in smoke, when the bell tolls wild." Loki whispers into the microphone. His eyes are closed and the black points which extend into the hollows of his bones and usually make his eyes burn green just make his glistening skin look white. From everywhere bells are tolling, and Tony feels like his spirit has travelled to Notre Dame on the sound and left his hollow body in New Orleans.

"Chime child, chime child I can be your time, child. I'll wreathe you in smoke when I hear Gabriel's Hounds…"

Loki trails off and Tony knows that a storm is coming. The drummer, who Tony has learned is called Peters and sprinkles coke in everything he drinks, begins to pound away at his kit like he's trying to beat the absolute shit out of it.

"HOOOOOOOWWWL!" And the next thing Tony knows his spirit is back in his lungs and people are thrashing madly and he's thrashing too.

The next, next thing Tony knows the crowd is clamoring for an encore. He knows it won't come. He's extricating himself from the fray, going where Loki had told him to go. He follows a series of blurry hallways, to a door with a line of people, mostly women, standing outside of it. He passes all of them.

They aren't happy with him. He slams the door on their protests.

Back stage is chaos. Everyone's moving something, getting something, taking something off, putting something on, or smoking something. Jonce, the keyboardist, is in the corner with a half naked girl.

He's a short, slight man in a sequined vest and he takes the time to shout:

"Oi, Tony! Loki's out back having a fag." Before returning to the girl's breasts.

Tony doesn't know how to take this. He's too fucked up to remember that Brits call cigs fags. He stumbles forward anyway, mostly numb and somewhat horrified.

He's confused when he finds Loki standing by himself out back of the venue, the name of which Tony isn't all that clear on, smoking a cigarette. He's still got about half of his make up on, but he's dressed in the kimono Tony thinks he remembers from LA.

It's unusual in that it's almost entirely silver and green and instead of flowers its covered in beautiful delicate spiders.

"I've been waiting for you." Loki's talking fast.

"Yeeeaah?" Tony feels like his bones have been replaced with frozen slowly melting marmalade.

"I'm taking you out tonight." The words hit Tony's placid marmaladey body like pebbles in a lake.

Tony's answering groan could possibly be a phrase.

"Gonna tart you up and paint the town red with you. Yes." The yes is hissed.

Tony sways on his feet.

"Not like this, though. You're a bit low. Here, I've got just the thing.

The next thing Tony knows there's a pale white thigh sticking out of green silk and white powder being pushed around with a finger on top of it into a neat little line. And his nose is buried in it.

"Breathe in, darling." Says Loki and Tony does. He feels like the inside of his nostrils and throat are being cut with ground glass. He coughs and spits onto the thigh he's bent over.

"What was that?" Asks Tony when he can finally stand up again. He almost expects to see his own blood splattered on Loki's thigh.

Loki laughs low and rich and deep and Tony shivers.

"You know, usually when they're as beautiful as you they don't have a personality. Such jokes!"

Tony's being led by the hand somewhere.

And he's fine with that.


	16. Chapter 16

Tony can't stop talking.

If you're first thought is 'And that's different from the usual, how?" Then your thoughts need to be apprised of the true gravity of the situation.

He's wearing more make up and jewelry than an aging trophy wife and sitting shirtless in a hotel room with twenty people standing around in awe as he carries out conversations with every single one of them. On completely different topics. At the same time.

He's discussing the possibility of alien life with a man in a powdered wig and a polyester suit. He's talking about the differences between eastern and western romance languages with two women in complete drag. He's talking cars with a man whose heating up heroin in a spoon. He's talking about the Rolling Stones with a woman who claims that Mick Jagger fucked her with a Hershey bar. He's arguing the opposite position of whatever his other position is on alien life with powdered wig polyester dude with a man whose dressed entirely in white.

Occasionally he stops all the conversations to ask the man dressed in white if he's god.

Sometimes the man says yes and sometimes he says no.

Tony doesn't really care what the answer is since he refuses to believe anything that comes out of the man's mouth. Tony can tell by his face that he's a liar. Liars just have a certain kind of face.

Then suddenly Loki is wrapped around him.

"Hello Darl—" Tony begins and before he can finish he's being dragged up into a kiss by one of his long strands of pearls. It tastes like the chalk of pill residue, tobacco, and red wine.

Tony groans into it.

"Aren't you something, puppy?" Says Loki and if Tony knew any better or was closer to sober he might have recognized the danger in that voice. Loki was not pleased.

Tony grins up at him with all of the overconfident ease in the world and Loki's mouth twitches.

"Know a little bit of everything and everyone now, hmmm? Is that why you wandered off?"

Tony looks and sees that Loki has a drink in each hand and suddenly remembers that Loki had told him to stay put while he got them drinks, possibly hours ago. Since then Tony has been buffeted from room to room and in and out of the elevator by various groups of people, chattering all the while.

"Fuck." Says Tony and Loki nods darkly.

"Indeed."

"Look, baby, I'm sorry but I'm not sure what the hell I'm even on or how I'm feeling or where we are and I don't know how this happened but I do know that…"

As Loki grabs him by the wrist and drags him out of the hotel room, down a hall, down three flights of stairs, and into the car Tony's still talking. Sometimes he's apologizing, sometimes he's making observations, and sometimes his thoughts pour out of him in disjointed burbles of sound.

Loki puts something between his lips and he swallows it and that's that.


	17. Chapter 17

When Tony wakes up he's on a plane and he feels like he's died.

He's curled up in Loki's lap like a child and a hand is playing with his hair. The dirty looks of the other passengers in first class are like physical daggers through whatever the hell he's wearing. It feels silky. He feels the silk over his skin for a long minute. He drags his fingers over it.

It's so soft.

Tony can dig that.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a man in a grey suit look nearly purple with rage in their vague direction, and just to spite him he slowly lifts his weary head and softly kisses the sharp underside of Loki's jaw.

Before he can appreciate the firework display of disgust turning the man's face violent colors there's a curtain pulled around them.

"Don't move. I've got my ash tray on your hip."

It's as if Loki's words can literally will physical objects into existence, because Tony can suddenly feel the tray's little clawed feet resting on his skin as it balances precariously on his hip bone.

"How are you feeling?" Asks Loki and his voice sounds tight and unsure.

"Food." Says Tony. "Lots of food."

He feels Loki's chuckle more than hears it and suddenly a tiny bell is ringing. The curtain is pushed aside and a flight attendant appears.

"Yes, Mr. Lauff?" She says and her eyes are wide with idolatrous glee. Tony wonders if she volunteered to do this, because he's pretty damn sure that that's not how flight attendants work.

"Tell her what you want, baby." Says Loki and Tony thinks that if he had the energy to move he'd totally be flirting with her, because she has perfect tits.

"Food." The prospect of food seems infinitely more appealing than anything in the universe. His mouth starts to water. "A cheeseburger." He wonders if his body is confused or just that out of whack because even he has never almost gotten hard thinking about a cheeseburger.

"Did you keep it warm like I asked?" Loki asks the flight attendant and she nods emphatically.

"Yes Mr. Lauff! Of course!"

"Fantastic. And bring us some Merlot."

"Yes Mr. Lauff. Right away Mr. Lauff."

The curtain is put back and Loki sighs.

"Here, have a drag. It will fix you right up."

Tony takes a drag of the cigarette between his lips and swears he can feel the glorious calm flowing through his entire body.

When the flight attendant comes back with two cheeseburgers, a mountain of fries, two wine glasses, and a tall bottle of Merlot on a tray Tony realizes that this really isn't how one night stands are supposed to work.

"Problem?" Asks Loki as he fills both glasses to the brim and knocks half of one back.

Tony looks between the rock god, the glasses of red, and the cheeseburgers.

"These are like all of my favorite things."

"How dreadful this must be for you."

Loki decides to sip the rest of his wine and savor it properly. It makes his lips deliciously red.

"No, I just mean, how did you know?"

Loki shoots him a quite unimpressed look. "Either I am a being of awesome and terrible power masquerading as some sort of rock and roll whore, or you told me."

"I'd believe either."

"Flatterer." Says Loki and Tony feels like he's heading off of a cliff toward a nervous breakdown. Biting into that cheeseburger feels like a cheesy meaty retroactive bungy jumping cord.

"And you're not a whore."

Loki smiles warmly.

"You're a prostitute. People lob off their arms to spend a night with you."

Loki looks like he wants to be offended, but he can't quite manage it. Tony dips a French fry in his wine. An another. Halfway through his third fry it occurs to him that Loki should probably be killing him right now, but if Loki's not feeling it than Tony isn't going to give him any cause to. He can feel the tension in Loki's body, feel it like it's ready to snap, but whatever Loki's playing at, Tony's happy to play along.

"There is so much wrong with you."

"What? It's kind of like a malted." Insists Tony and Loki shakes his head fondly.


	18. Chapter 18

They are in Orlando. Tony had no idea they were in Orlando until the pilot announced it. He doesn't really care. While there's something about New Orleans that Tony can't put his finger on, and he is somewhat in love with the mystery of it, he doesn't even want to touch Orlando. It's like a less cool New York City with more children, tourists, and mouse ears.

And humidity.

Not thrilling, and not really even that nice.

It turns out to be the weirdest place in the universe. And not because of anything that has do with Orlando specifically.

All though, the fact that the state of Florida can't really afford a police force doesn't hurt.

Tony and Loki are already drunk and giggling when they get off the plane and one of Loki's handlers piles them into a cab toward their hotel.

Absolutely everything is hilarious.

The cab driver looks murderous by the time they are outside the Giancarlo, which has golden pillars and golden doors.

"Welcome to El Dorado." Says Loki as he opens one of the front doors and ushers Tony inside. "No accounting for taste."

Tony disagrees. Shiny is always good. And damn, was the Giancarlo shiny. And gold.

Just throw in some red and it would have been fucking perfect.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Tony registers that people are looking disgusted and offended at the sight of them. He registers a woman covering up her children's eyes and an old man with a pipe full of tobacco muttering 'faggots' under his breath.

The forefront of his mind is occupied by Loki's long-fingered hand grabbing his ass through his silk what-ever-the-hell he's wearing.

"Baby, stop it." He says without meaning it and it occurs to him that he sounds like those girls he used to talk into sleeping with him. He remembers how much it drove him crazy when they played coy and figures its time for a little sweet revenge.

He nearly misses the concierge's horrified expression as he drops a room key into Loki's outstretched palm from nearly three feet away, taking great care not to touch him.

"Thank you, dear." Says Loki with a wink that causes the concierge to physically turn green before dragging Tony away.

In the (gold) elevator Tony finds himself pressed up against a wall.

Loki's teeth are at his throat and his hands are sliding up his shirt and Tony throws his head back and sighs.

"Looooki." He breathes out on a tiny whine as those fingers circle his nipples through his shirt.

"Yes, darling?"

"Shouldn't we...mmm...wait until we get to the room?"

The next thing Tony knows one of those hands is around his rapidly hardening cock and teeth are nipping at his ear.

"You don't feel like you want to wait. In fact, you feel ready right now."

"But Loki-"

"You're already so wet. I could bend you over right now and have you if I wanted, couldn't I?"

Operation Torment Loki isn't quite going how Tony expected. A voice is his head is screaming 'Abort!' but turns to white noise as fingers pinch and pull at his nipples through silk.

"Couldn't I, baby?"

Suddenly Loki isn't touching him anymore and Tony feels like all of the air in the elevator is gone.

"Yes!" He gasps and a bell rings. The elevator stops.

The walk to their room is torture.

Even the limber and dextrous Loki can only walk so fast in heels.


	19. Chapter 19

Even the room is gold and Tony feels like he's in some kind of strange fantasy land as Loki picks him up and pins him against the wall, forcing him to wrap his legs around his hips.

He feels Loki's cock strain against his own and groans.

He hums low and deep in his chest and Tony swears he can feel it run along the length of every last one of his nerves.

Tony experimentally shifts to get more friction against his cock. It feels so good that he does it again. And again.

"Do you like humping my leg, puppy?"

Suddenly there are hands squeezing his ass and Tony doesn't know what to do with himself.

"I'm gonna get you nice and ready to take all of this."

Tony finds one of his hands wrapped around Loki's cock and jesus christ, it's huge.

"Now, don't you look up at me with your sad eyes, by the time I'm through with you you'll be begging for it. You're. So. Sensitive."

Tony didn't think he was. He'd been good with girls. About half the time he could last as long as he wanted, and by his reckoning that's pretty fucking impressive for a kid whose not even twenty.

"Though so pretty when you're frightened."

And suddenly their naked, stretched out on a bed. Loki's stroking and Tony's gasping and he hasn't any idea how they got there. They're naked and Tony feels like he's burning.

There is a single, warm wet finger circling his hole.

Tony feels himself tremble and his hole twitch toward that digit as every last inch of him demands to be filled.

The knowledge that even his body is aching for it steals his breath. He abstractly wonders if he's going to cry before that sliver of blissful relief is plunging inside him.

"Oh." He cried and Loki smirks.

"You really have never done this before have you?"

Tony begins to shake his head but it ends up flung against the pillow as another finger slides home. They stretch and pull and burn and occasionally graze something deep inside him. When they do Tony chokes on air.

"What is that!?" He asks after a particularly violent stab just there leaves him gasping and leaking.

Loki chuckles and Tony can feel the fingers stretching him wider than he's ever been before. The wine has made his muscles placid and loose and Tony isn't sure, but there might actually be a third finger opening him up.

Three of Loki Lauff's fingers inside him.

Fuck.

The noise Tony makes isn't even human.

"Did I find your spot, baby?"

"My sp-?" Tony begins, but is cut off by Loki taking whatever it is between two fingers and pinching.

"Oh yes, I rather think I have."

Tony howls.

"And this is just a few measly fingers. Imagine what it will feel like when I've got you bouncing on this."

Tony looks down and he thinks that Loki's cock might actually be looking into his soul because sweet buttery christ, a man could club a small animal to death with that thing.

It's thick and long and flushing pink. It stands out from between his hips from a neat bunch of sable curls.

"I've almost got four fingers in you, nearly my whole hand. Could you imagine that, puppy? My hand inside you? Down to the wrist? Filling you until you sobbed?"

"Oh god."

"Mhmm." Says Loki with another little twist and Tony doesn't know or care if he can really handle the monster between Loki's legs, but he knows that he wants it inside him. He has to do it.

Tony wants.

And Tony Stark gets what he wants.

"Looookiii." He whines. "Come on, I'm ready."

"Are you really?"

Tony nods and bites his lip until it turns red.

"Come on." His breath hitches as those lithe fingers twist.

"I want it."

Loki says nothing.

"I want your cock."

The growl that rips its way out of Loki's throat satisfies something deep within Tony. He goes on as Loki mercilessly finger fucks him. He can't help himself.

"Loki, I...I...I..need..."

"Ask nicely."

"Oh for fucks-"

And the next thing Tony knows the head is slowly sliding inside him and he swears he can feel his eyes roll around in his skull.

"Bit out of your depth, baby?"

Tony doesn't know whether it hurts or it feels good but its strange to be so full.

"I applaud you for trying to play, but you don't even know the rules."

Tony isn't sure if he can hear. He wonders if its logistically impossible for a cock to be endless.

"Only I know the rules."

Tony thinks he might be crying. Either that or its sweat. His body is dripping as it shakes, beyond his control. His hole involuntarily clenches around the length inside him and Loki howls.

Tony does it again with a shit eating grin.

"You might want to be a little nicer to me, baby." He slurs and squeezes just this side of too hard. Loki bites into his bottom lip. Blood begins to run down his chin.

The next thing Tony knows he's being kissed within an inch of his life. He feels like he's being devoured whole. There's blood and saliva dripping from his lips and it all tastes like cigarettes and wine.

As that clever tongue sends sparks shooting down his spine Loki finally bottoms out. Tony breaks the kiss only because he can hardly even remember how to breathe.

He chants out a series of sounds with no definition and precise meaning as Loki angles himself and whatever that thing inside him is lights up like a christmas tree on fire.

"Fucking christ."

Loki's hardly moving, barely even sliding in and out. He just shifts slightly on the bed, edging his cock and driving Tony steadily out of his mind.

"Tell me!" Tony croaks and Loki is almost too busy panting like a motherfucker to answer.

"Tell you what?" He tries for nonchalant but it falls unbelievably flat. He's got teeth tearing into his bloody lip and his rhythm is starting to falter. It's only a matter of time before he cums.

"What do you keep touch-"

It seems to Tony that one of Loki's greatest pleasures in life is interrupting him mid-sentence, because all of his attempts to keep asking how he keeps making him feel like this are quickly interrupted with jerking stabs of Loki's thick cock.

"You mean your spot, puppy?"

Tony groans.

"Prostate. Little bundle of nerves. Proof positive of an ultimately benevolent univ-"

Tony slowly lets his hole tighten until Loki's choking on his words. His hard and aching cock suddenly hits him like an afterthought, and he's suddenly too overpowered by the need to cum to be smug.

When Loki regains focus he's suddenly sliding out and Tony begins to sob.

"Hush, Darling. I'm going to take such good..."

Tony feels like he's being impaled as that cock slides in him faster than he'd ever thought possible and there's raw panic burning in his chest and eyes until Loki begins drilling his prostate.

Tony screams. And screams.

And screams.

"Fuck you're tight. Fuck. Fuck Fuck."

And suddenly Tony's entire universe consists of that fat cock fucking him open.

"I.." He begins and never finishes, because he can feel how heavy his balls are as that energy coils in his abdomen, begging to spring free.

When he cums his whole body shakes and spasms and he feels Loki's cock pulsing as his insides are flooded with hot seed.

"Mine!" Growls Loki as he pumps his way through, and Tony vaguely registers some sort of discomfort as he clamors for air and the fake nails on Loki's hand draw blood from his hip. His whole lower body feels numb.

Loki's cock gives one last half-hearted twitch as it starts to soften.

Tony feels like he's run an marathon and groans unhappily when Loki starts to pull out.

"Sorry baby, but its gotta be done." Loki sounds hoarse and Tony sighs unhappily as he's left feeling hollow, like a cold wind could cut clear through him. He groans as his hole attempts to close on nothing at all.

"Can I just...?" Loki begins and before Tony can even realize that he didn't finish his question he's got one finger all the way inside.

It feels like nothing at all.

"You're so wet and open."

When Loki pulls out his finger, and drips the cum on it into his mouth like its a pipette, Tony doesn't know whether he's disgusted or aroused.

"What if I could keep you like this always? Gaping and full of me?"

Tony wishes his cock would shut the fuck up about it and let him sleep, because he isn't even sure he remembers how to speak.

When Loki yawns he feels immensely gratified.

"Nap time." Tony mumbles and vaguely pats somewhere on the bed by flinging his hand at it.

As Tony drifts into unconsciousness Loki is inhaling the sweet smoke of a cigarette. It dangles from between his lips. He's got Tony's hand in one of his and is cradling a burnt match in the other.

His exhale curls across the bed like wisps of fingers.


	20. Chapter 20

Tony wakes up alone in the hotel room. It's dark and somewhat creepy and he thinks that every muscle in his body might be sore.

The room still smells like sex and Tony feels the beginnings of interest start to pool the hollows of his bones. All he wants is to go back to sleep.

"Shut up," He looks down at his soft cock. "You have no right to be hard ever again."

It seems to agree. The next thing Tony realizes is that he's got dried cum all over his thighs and crack. It's unpleasant.

Trying to get out of bed is even more unpleasant.

"Loki?" He calls out and silence is his answer. If anyone asked, Tony wouldn't say that he was disappointed exactly.

He'd just say that he's, well...

He feels like someone tried to cram a baseball bat up his intestines.

"If he comes near me with that thing again I'm chopping it off." He says to no one as he painstakingly limps towards what he hopes is a bathroom. To his utter delight, it is, and it has a large, deep clawed bathtub. There is also a green marble bar in the bathroom, against the opposite wall.

Tony thanks god for small miracles as he limps over to the bar, steals a bottle of bourbon, and almost manages to climb into the tub without crying.

"Where does he even get off with a dick like that? It shouldn't even be possible."

The water is warm and it feels like heaven. The bourbon is delicious.

Tony stays in there till he's pruned, draining and adding more water every so often to keep it nice and hot. He decides to stay there until walking is no longer a problem.

When, at some point later, he hears Loki enter the room with two giggling girls he decides he'll stay in the bathroom until the very end of the universe.

Tony puts his head under the water, only coming up for air and bourbon.

He almost can't hear them at all.


	21. Chapter 21

When Tony wakes up he seriously starts to reconsider his life choices. The amount of time he spends waking up in places and not knowing how he got there is starting to get kind of ridiculous.

Then he realizes that he's laying on his side and the point of one of his hipbones is digging into the bathroom floor, and that he has some combination of hangover and internal bleeding. And his lungs are on fire.

"SPIT IT THE FUCK OUT."

He hears Loki bellow and the next thing he knows he's vomiting up something vaguely bourbon colored and it burns like hell. It makes him cough, which makes him vomit again.

He looks up and sees a naked thickset blonde in her 30's with tits so large they hang down to her belly button holding onto the doorframe, looking dazedly at him, like she can't even see him. It looks like she's been attacked by an animal.

She's covered in bites and scratches and lipstick.

Tony throws up again and feels Loki's hand on his back.

"That's it baby, that's it." The amount of times he's heard that in other contexts, but never in a voice so soft, leave Tony feeling dizzy.

"You and you're loose friend, get the fuck out."

Tony watches the girl float away and screws his eyes shut. He feels Loki stretched out on the floor behind him, spooning him, with a thin hand rubbing his stomach.

Tony hears the door of Loki's room open and close.

"Did I fuck you stupid?"

Tony wonders how Loki can say something like that without it sounding like the insult it obviously is.

"It's a valid question. You got so drunk that you blacked out. In a bathtub."

"I was snorting coke off your thigh in an alleyway two nights ain't much of a stretch."

"Baby, that was over a week ago."

That's a thought Tony doesn't need to have. It's like a whole other hangover on its own.

"Fuck it." Says Tony. He tries to extricate himself from Loki's grasp but can't. "Did you fuck them?" He asks and the anger is enough to shock Loki's arms slack. Tony slides across the bathroom floor and glowers at him.

"Had them sent back to your room right from the concert? Did you do it!?"

"Yeah," Says Loki, simple as anything. "It's what they were made for."

Tony is angry and he doesn't know why. Or he just might know, and the little tidbit of knowledge makes his anger burn.

"So what, the universe is made of walking sacks of meat you can fuck?"

"Essentially."

Tony grits his teeth.

"What, are you on the rag or something?"

Tony feels like Loki is laughing at him and suddenly he wants to knock all of his teeth out.

"I've got some Quaaludes in a pez dispenser in the bar. Pop em until they've medicined the cunt out of you. I'm going for a drive."

Tony watches as Loki gets up.

"So what, I almost drink myself straight to hell and you immediately want to shove pills down my throat? Good call, Doctor Lauff!"

Tony's hardly even finished his obligatory and delicious slow sarcastic clap when Loki's got him against the wall by his throat.

"If you want to kill me do it yourself, motherfucker." Growls Tony and Loki bares his teeth.

"I'd love to kill you. I'd enjoy it more than any other paltry entertainment your body could ever provide! You ignorant boy!"

"Then fucking do it, Shakespeare! Put the iambs away and your balls out! Smash my head against the fucking wall!"

Their lips are a hairsbreadth away and their breaths are in sync. Loki's eyes are burning and Tony begins to gag as those impossibly strong fingers start to tighten.

"You don't look afraid yet. I mustn't be squeezing hard enough."

Tony feels his body start to jerk and flail as if the skin will split and form a new seam through which can breathe. Blackness is curling like ink in water around the corners of his vision and before he realizes that he's managed to nail Loki in the crotch both of them are curled up on the floor in separate little balls of personal agony, panting and groaning.

Tony tries to sit up and the pain in his ass immediately sends him curling back up on the floor.

"Shit." He croaks, and the knowledge that the same man who fucked him stupid just tried to strangle him to death is more than he can take.

Tony doesn't know what city he's in, or if he's high or not, when he ate last, or who the hell he just lost his virginity to. He doesn't know what's happened or what day it is or what's going to happen next. He doesn't know when he'll be able to walk without feeling like he's in agony or if he's gonna wake up under a pile of hungover, fucked up, people whose gender he can't even tell.

Tony starts to cry.

Through his tears, he sees Loki slowly remove each of his heels, and crawl naked toward the bar, where he blindly grabs for a pez dispenser.

It's a batman Pez dispenser.

Tony knows that Loki is going to fuck himself up and he doesn't want to watch, but as Loki's throat works around the whittled down tablets, sucking them down, he finds himself hypnotized.

"Fuck you." Tony says and Loki flips him the bird while taking a swig of something from a bottle with fake diamonds sticking out of it.

"I don't think you've earned it, darling."

Suddenly Tony's laughing but he's crying because laughing makes his throat burn.

"That's the spirit."

When Loki stands over him dangling down a hand like a rope Tony takes it and swings.

He doesn't particularly want to.

He doesn't particularly not want to.

It's just that when he tries to think of other options he draws a complete blank.


	22. Chapter 22

Tony wakes up on his side, with Loki wrapped around him.

His first thought is that someone made entirely of bones should not be so comfortable. Or smell so good.

His second thought is that cuddling in the morning (Is it? Could be afternoon?) light with the man who tried to dope you up and strangle you the night before is probably not the smartest choice a person can reasonably make.

The fact that this was not his first thought makes him want to bash his head against something.

There's an arm flopped over him and Tony nudges his nose to the soft cool skin and inhales.

"Do you really want to die?"

Tony hums a vaguely questioning noise in the voice's general direction, but Loki does not repeat his question. Tony nips at his forearm and tastes.

"You constantly surprise me."

Tony's tongue freezes mid lick and his lips stop moving but do not leave the tender skin.

"I'm going to write a song about you."

Tony does not want to feel flattered, but a part of his brain is suddenly squealing at the other parts of his brain like a teenaged girl. On speed.

And he's seen enough of that to know what he's talking about.

"George," Says Loki and Tony can hear him on the other end. He really wants to know how Loki managed to get and dial the phone while still spooning with him. "I want Wendy...what do you mean she's in half...last night...I did what?"

Tony kind of wants to laugh. So he does.

"...But I can't write without her! Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost will be dead without Wendy-"

"Wendy's your guitar, right?" Asks Tony and Loki nods. "Baby, I could give her a look if you wanted."

Something dangerous briefly flashes in his eyes before its gone. "Wendy's my girl, Tony. My whole world. Are you sure that you know what you're doing?"

The prospect of getting his hands on something he can build is making Tony's mouth water.

"Dollface, I'm Tony Fucking..." Tony feels like he's hit a brick wall. He doesn't know what to put in that sentence where his father's name should have gone.

Tony suddenly feels sick. He hardly hears Loki finish his conversation with George.

"Is your last name like really long and Italian and embarrassing or something?"

Tony doesn't remember ever being Italian a day in his life, but he looks up at Loki's make-up smeared face and the love-bites stacked like buttons down the column of his throat, and suddenly feels every point where their bodies touch like liquid lightning, and figures 'why the fuck not?'.

"Yeah, hardly even know how to say it. Every time I try my tongue actually falls out of my mouth."

"Charming."

There's a knock on the door.

"Just a second!"

Tony begins to scramble for at least a scarf when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Loki shakes his head and rips the sheet off of Tony and tosses it away.

"Stay right here." Says Loki and Tony feels strangely like the hangman's got his eye on him as he hears Loki let George in and lead him to the bedroom.

When the man walks into the room he turns bright red.

"If Jack here's gonna be your live in can you at least put a loin cloth on him or something?"

Tony kind of wants to die.

"Now George, play nice. Tony's going to fix Wendy."

"You sawed the bloody thing in half! I don't see-"

"Come here baby, take a look at my firstborn."

"I'd hate to have seen that birth." Says Tony as he tries to leap toward the instrument and ends up groaning in pain before gingerly maneuvering himself onto the floor.

George's mustache twitches with disapproval.

"My vagina ached for days." Says Loki as he exhales smoke. There's a cigarette dangling from his fingers.

"I can relate."

"Oh christ!" Says George as he tears at his temples with blunt fingers, as if trying to pound the mental images he's receiving to dust.

Tony looks down at the guitar. It's quite literally been sawed in half, and he's got six ideas of how to put it back together. But first he's got to know:

"Where did you get a fucking saw, Loki?"

"Met the devil at the crossroads. Gave me the fastest hands south of Mississippi and a saw."

"In return for what?"

"Pussy still aching, baby?"

"Can you fix the damn thing!?" Splutters George and suddenly Tony feels like himself, and everything is right with the world.

"Yeah, but I'm gonna need a few things."

"Name it!" George is desperate to leave and Tony doesn't blame him. His balls aren't itchy really, but he gives them a loving scratch anyway.

"Bad puppy. Not in front of the guests."

Tony bites off a chunk of the rolled up newspaper Loki tries to playfully smack him in the face with. He spits out the newspaper on George's feet.

"Wrenches, washers, rosewood, pliers, a soldering iron, a cheeseburger-"

"A cheeseburger?" Asks George.

"Make it three." Loki Amends with a wave of his cigarette. He spreads ash all over the carpet.

"None of that, Wendy needs a sterile environment."

"I guess we should move her off the bed then."

"Mother of the year? Maybe you should try again in a few lifetimes."

"I'll have you know that I'm a wonderful mother!"

"You sawed your child in half, Loki. And you don't even remember doing it."

Loki has discovered a way to pout and smoke simultaneously.

Tony thinks he's some sort of gesturing Gallileo.

"Well, that's why Daddy's gonna fix it, right?"

Something about being called Daddy answers the question Tony was asked for him.

"Oh mama, you ain't never seen a guitar as fixed as Wendy will be."

Loki smiles at him and he smiles back.

"Anything else you need?"

Tony's forgotten that George is even there.

He begins his list. Over again. This time he throws in a bottle of Merlot for Wendy's mama.


	23. Chapter 23

Usually when Tony is working on something he could keep his head bowed and hands busy through a nuclear holocaust.

The mass destruction of humanity and all of its innovations, history, art, culture, and potential is one thing.

The noises Loki is making in the deep red and gold wingback chair across the room are another thing entirely.

He sounds like there should be someone in that chair with him, teasing him blind.

When Tony looks over Loki's got a hand wrapped around his thick, straining erection. It's the only flash of skin poking out of his black silk kimono aside from his hands, feet, and a long white v where the material gaps leading up to his neck.

"Do you mind?" Tony's knee deep in wires and his mouth is going dry.

"Not at all, darling." When Loki starts to stroke himself he throws his head back and moans.

"Do you want me to electrocute myself?"

"I think we've already-ah-established that I'd much prefer you alive."

"That's comforting."

Tony watches as the head of Loki's cock starts to flush red.

"Baby, I just love a man whose good with his hands."

"Well, love him later."

"But I want to love him now."

"But what about Wendy."

"Fuck Wendy."

"Sexy. But where do I put it in?"

Tony goes back to tinkering with Wendy. He's cutting and pulling and arranging bits and pieces when suddenly a particularly loud moan from the chair causes his cock to twitch in such a way that makes further concentration impossible.

"Daddy," Breathes Loki from the chair and he's pouting and smoking and jerking off at the same time.

Tony is impressed.

He's also really fucking turned on.

"Daddy, I want to show you something."

Loki's sitting like a whore with one hand between his legs and the other holding the cigarette between his lips. Tony plucks it from between his lips and takes a drag as he plants himself between Loki's spread thighs.

"Yeah?" He says and Loki smirks.

"I want to show you something."

"And what's that, baby?"

"My cock, Daddy."

Tony doesn't know what to do with himself.

But that's never stopped him before and it's sure as fuck not gonna stop him now.

"Oh I see it. Couldn't behave yourself for a minute. Couldn't wait while I was working, could you?"

Loki shakes his head and how easily he can transform into something so childlike might have impressed Tony if he had any blood left to devote to being impressed.

"What did I tell you?"

"That you were gonna finish Wendy after you gave me a good suck. That you were gonna suck me dry, daddy."

Tony knows that, that isn't true. He finds himself quite inclined to believe Loki anyway.

"Oh yeah?"

"Mmm-hmm." Says Loki and Tony sinks between his legs. He finds himself face to face with Loki's tightly drawn sack. He pushes his nose in softly and inhales, just to see.

Loki groans. Tony palms himself through his jeans and finds his mouth hovering near Loki's little pink hole. He takes Loki's ass in his hands and pulls his cheeks apart.

"Darling, what-" Loki's broken character and that's enough to convince Tony that he's on the right track. He starts to circle that hole with a single finger, lightly feeling the texture of the rim and watching it wink open and shut in pursuit of friction.

Tony wants in, and suddenly he remembers that Loki had used something to slick him up first.

He figures that Loki's own cum is slippery enough to get the job done, and he pumps his cock till he's leaking in order to get his fingers nice and wet.

He starts with one and slowly slides it in. Tony's done this with girls enough to know the basic mechanics. He can play a pussy like a violin. He figures this will kind of be like playing a cello.

He slides in and out and feels Loki barely start to open up around him. He doesn't really know enough to be a proper judge of these things, but he thinks that someone like Loki shouldn't be so tight.

"Another." Says Loki and Tony can physically feel him stretch around his fingers. The feeling of his own fingers rubbing against one another slick with cum in that tight heat makes Tony's breath catch.

He wriggles them experimentally, stroking and sliding against Loki's insides just feeling him squirm when suddenly Loki let's out a soft moan.

It takes Tony a minute to find that spot again but when he's done he's certain to rub his fingers against it. Again. And again. And again.

"More." Groans Loki and Tony snakes another finger inside him and gasps when his hole squeezes tight around him.

"Fuck." Tony presses up against his prostate even harder and Loki shifts his entire body downwards, grinding against his fingers.

The room is silent aside from their breathing and soft grunts as Loki takes his lower lips between his teeth and rocks against Tony's hand.

"Talk to me!"

Tony's never heard Loki whine before.

"What...do you want me to say?"

Tony twists his fingers and Loki keens.

"Tell me! Tell me...oh, Daddy, talk to me."

"I...I...umm..."

"Don't you want me to cum, Daddy?"

"Yeah, but not until I say. You, got that?"

"But Daddy-"

"No, Loki." Growls Tony. "You're going to do what I fucking tell you to do." By the end of that sentence he's practically yelling and Loki's looking up at him through his lashes like a frightened child.

"I'm sorry I made you angry."

Tony knows that Loki really isn't sorry. In fact, he's probably never been sorry for anything he's done in his entire fucking life. The bastard couldn't find the word 'remorse' in the dictionary if he had a magnifying glass and three guys to do it for him.

Suddenly Tony's plunging in and out of his hole like he wants to tear him in half.

Loki's loving it.

"Do you want to punish me, Dad-"

Before he can finish Tony's backhanded him. Loki's eyes are wide and shocked and Tony does it again as he pumps his fingers in and out of him relentlessly.

Loki let's out cry after cry as Tony pounds his face and his ass, chanting curses like a meditative mantra.

"Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you."

Suddenly Loki's spitting out blood and it's running out of his nostrils and Tony feels his erection wilt to nothing. He's relieved when Loki's finished. The man seems to cave in on himself as he cums.

Some hits Tony and he jumps away from Loki like he's been burned.

"I'm gonna wash up and finish Wendy." He says sheepishly before shuffling away as best as he can with a pronounced limp.

Loki watches him go, contemplatively massaging his sore jaw.


	24. Chapter 24

Loki has been sitting in a chair chain smoking and drinking glasses of Merlot for seven hours when George comes and tells them they've got an hour to get ready for their flight out of Orlando.

That gives Tony just enough time to finish Wendy.

Wendy is a twenty year old Gibson Les Paul Goldtop. By the time Tony's done with her gold paint gleams brighter than the entire overly-gold Giancarlo.

Tony presents Wendy to her mother with an uncertain little grin.

"Here you go, babe." He says and Loki takes the instrument into his lap and hugs it to his body. He looks like he's been handed the universe. He kisses Wendy's neck before turning his attention back to Tony.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" He ask softly. "She doesn't have any strings."

Tony wants to be mad but he has a feeling that's supposed to be a thank you because Loki is taking the time to slowly kiss every last one of his fingers like they've single handedly cast the heavens and sculpted the earth.

Tony wonders just how drunk he is and if he's on anything. He watches as Loki places Wendy on the floor and before Tony knows whats happening there are hands on his hips and he's being pulled into a lap full of kimono.

"Wine?" Asks Loki.

"Why not?"

Tony feels like he's wrapped in a silk cocoon and Loki's feeding him wine from a glass rimmed and striped with gold. Fingers are teasing the shaggy hairs at the nape of his neck.

He's almost fallen into a light doze when he hears the door opened.

"Mr. Lauff we've got-holy fucking christ what has he done to the room-Oh my god, he's fixed your guitar!"

Tony doesn't particularly like or dislike George.

He'd just rather never hear him speak again.

"I told you my baby could do it." Says Loki.

"But you sawed it in half!"

"I'm a genius." Says Tony and Loki laughs brightly.

George looks like he wants to doubt this but, facing the evidence, can't.

"Get dressed, the both of you. We've got to be out of here in ten minutes."

"Roger that. And get me some strings, George. you know what I like."

George nods and is gone.

Tony tries to extricate himself from Loki's lap but he won't let him go.

"Where are we going?"

"Hmmm."

"We're going to be getting on a plane in an hour. Where are we going?"

"Fuck me if I know." Says Loki and this time when Tony tries to get up he lets him.

"Got an extra kimono anywhere?"

"Always for you, darling."

Tony thinks there's probably something wrong with him.

Having a man get off the plane the second he and Loki get on because he doesn't want to spend four hours with a couple of faggots should probably not make him smile.

There's something about pissing people off that Tony finds deeply satisfying.

"You are the single strangest human being I've ever met." Loki tells him as he cradles his stringless guitar and pack of fresh strings. Tony's got a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other and when he shrugs he sloshes wine and spreads smoke.

"I'm not the easiest person in the world to lie to, but you seem to manage just fine."

The almost reverent look in Loki's eyes stops Tony from being offended. Somehow, he knows that that's a compliment.

He's also too busy being scared shitless to be offended.

"Know how to string a guitar, little liar?"

Tony is thankful for cigarettes. He makes a show of taking a long hard drag, stalling for time to clear his thoughts before he settles on a response.

"No." He eventually says, and wants to slap himself for taking a good three minutes to come up with such a nuanced and complex response.

"Well, I'm going to teach you. I'm sure you'll pick it up before you know it."

Tony spends almost the rest of the flight learning that he's tone deaf.

When Loki manages to have the damn thing tuned in a minute flat Tony wants to strangle something.

"It's really quite simple, darl-"

"If you want me to smash that thing over your head keep right on, darling."

Loki does that thing where he pouts and smokes at the same time and Tony can't help but smile.

"Darling is my word." Says the rock god. "You can't have it."

"You can't own words, Darling."

"I can own whatever I want, Darling. It's called capitalism."

"Actually Darling, I believe that means you own whatever you can afford."

"Or what you can steal." And when Loki kisses him it tastes like wine and Tony feels like he could die happy.

"This is your captain speaking, Letting you know that we'll be landing in Atlanta in approximately thirty minutes, over."

"I thought that place was underwater." Tony pours a smidgeon of wine into another glass and drops what's left of his smoldering filter in it.

"That's one way to describe it." Says Loki and Tony wants to ask what he means, but Loki's gone. He strumming and plucking at Wendy's strings and seemingly humming five tunes in and out of time, weaving them around each other.

Tony wonders if this is the song about him.


	25. Chapter 25

Atlanta is hot and busy and a few pieces of the picturesque old south blend seamlessly with the very heights of modern technology.

It makes Tony miss the old world charm and ancient oak trees which have the city of New Orleans wrapped in a mossy wooden web that feels more like a warm blanket.

Considering he didn't leave the hotel room once in Orlando, Tony thinks he's going to give Atlanta a spin anyway.

This is very convenient as the second they get to their hotel room Loki more or less pushes Tony out of it.

"I'm writing." Loki says. "I need to be alone. Go find Jonce or Lee or Peters."

Tony wonders who those people are before remembering that he's technically crashing Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost's band tour, which means that, logically, Loki Lauff must have a band. And that, logically, these people must have names.

Tony is about to complain when suddenly a leather jacket, a pack of cigarettes, a pack of matches, and a hundred dollars is chucked out of the crack in the door at his head.

"I'll see you at the show Friday." Says Loki before slamming the door shut. Tony can live with this. He's sliding the leather jacket on over his kimono and his newly acquired treasures into the pockets when he realizes that he doesn't even know which hotel he's in.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" He asks an elderly woman who just happens to be passing by. She stops and looks at him with wide eyes. "Can you tell me which hotel this is?"

"The Meridian." She says and stalks away as if offended by his very presence.

"Thanks dollface." Says Tony to the empty hallway before lighting a cig and going out in search of Jonce or Lee or Peters.

They find him first. He's wandering aimlessly around the Meridian, soaking in the awful plastic turquoise wall paper when suddenly he feels a hand on his shoulder.

"Didn't know he lets you out alone."

Tony looks up and sees Peters standing in front of him. Without the insane outfits and stage make up Tony almost always sees him in he looks so normal that it's eerie. He's a somewhat pasty white guy of a middling size with dishwater eyes and the same color brown hair that almost everyone seems to have.

"Broke the leash." Says Tony and Peters hands twitch. Without drum sticks in his hands he always looks slightly dazed and confused.

"It's strange. I feel like you've been with us forever and I've never said a word to you."

"I'm a shy one, Darling." Says Tony and Peters shakes his head. It hits Tony that Peters' accent is slightly English but also slightly ten or fifteen other things.

"I feel like a walk, you got anything a little less...far out to put on?"

Tony hadn't even realized that he'd been living exclusively in Loki's clothes for weeks. He doesn't know how he feels about this.

"Define far out?"

"Gotcha. Don't worry about it. Jonce is about your size, slight little man. I'll see if he'll lend us some trousers at least."

It turns out Jonce isn't in, but Peters manages to break into his room in a millisecond by jimmying the lock with some folded up paper.

"Spend so much on wall paper in these places that they haven't got the bread left for a security deposit, if you know what I mean."

Tony laughs easily and freely. After the full-time wildly spiraling walking smoking emotional apocalypse that Loki manages to be, Peters is like putting cool water on a burn.

Peters is quick to smile and quick to laugh and quick to joke. Tony gets the feeling that some comets skate by the atmosphere more often than Peters gets angry.

"Yeah man." Says Tony as Peters pulls a pair of long white denim bell-bottoms out of a drawer.

"Here, I'm just gonna leave Joncey a note telling him where his pants walked off to. He owes me some hard quid in Mary Jane and I'm not collecting on it so I don't think he'll be too cross about things. Change up, love."

With that there's a pair of pants in his arms. He looks over to see Peters scribbling something on a receipt on one of the rooms dressers.

As he shimmies out of Loki's kimono and puts on the pants he feels absurdly naked. Wrapping himself in his leather jacket makes him feel a bit better.

"Oh, you've got it bad, huh?"

Tony realizes he's smelling the jacket a second too late.

"Oh don't be ashamed. I mean, your taste is kind of shit but my last girl, back in London, tried to rob me bind while I was sleeping so I can't really say much about any of that."

The pants are so tight that Tony is momentarily distracted by the need to breathe and not vomit. "What do you mean, 'shit'?" He finally gasps out.

Peters looks as unimpressed as it's possible to be while still being completely polite.

"Loki picked you up in L.A, right?"

Tony nods.

"Since then we've been to New Orleans, Orlando, and now Atlanta. It's been just over two weeks and I'm pretty sure you've spent every woken moment with the bloke. You can't tell me that you haven't noticed that he's a bit...spare?"

Tony can think that all he wants but hearing this Peters lay it all on the table makes his hands ball into fists.

"Now don't get cross with me, mate. I love Loki. I really do. We started this band together, him and me. We've been the thickest of thieves for, well, four years, now."

There's something about Peters that makes you feel like if you're not calm you're wrong. Tony hates being wrong.

"Well, up until a couple of months ago, leastways."

"What happened?" Tony asks and suddenly he realizes that the air feels different and when he looks around he realizes that they're walking around a busy street in the sunshine, and cars are flying by.

Tony wonders if he's going absolutely crazy.

"Well, Loki's way into magic. Like really deep, the deepest I think you can get. I've seen him do some things, and half the time I go on pretending I didn't just to keep my realities straight, if you can feel that?"

"Yeah, man." Says Tony and suddenly he's incredibly grateful that Loki kicked him out for a day or so. He'd almost forgotten that there was a world outside of the man, and being immersed in it suddenly is like being lifted from the center of a fog.

"Nick a fag?" Asks peters and Tony looks at him blankly.

"You've got a pack in your pocket."

Tony reaches down to the box of cigs in his pocket and remembers that whole American English vs English English thing. He hands Peters one and takes one for himself.

"Thanks. You're a star." Says Peters and lights a match for them both. "But leastways, about six months ago, while we were recording the album, Loki went wrong. Straight sixes and sevens. Seriously."

"Sixes and Sevens?" Asks Tony.

"Oh come on, no one's that public school. It's plain english."

Tony has no idea what's happening.

"Are you an Englishman or aren't you?"

"Peters, I'm American."

"No."

"Born in L.A."

"Well then you've nicked Loki's accent along with his clothes because you talk posher than him, and he's the prince of posh gits."

"Darling, I do not..."

Tony suddenly feels like he's in a horror film. His voice doesn't even sound like the one he's had for nineteen years anymore, and according to Peters its only been two weeks.

Jesus christ.

"But, anyway, Loki always does this thing where he meditates. Sometimes he's gone in his head or whatever he goes for days. Once he dehydrated himself doing it. Had to get him to hopsital."

Jesus Christ.

"It's like his body can't handle his soul man. Like it just shouldn't be there."

Tony has always thought of Loki more as like a collective embodiment of impulses than an actual human being. He'd never really thought of him as a thing with a soul.

"He was always a strange bloke. Really quiet with almost everybody unless he wanted something from them, but he could probably cheat the devil if he wanted. And he has. Walked into the White Clay's record office in London and talked us into a deal. We didn't even have four songs done yet. The guy really is magic. Seemed to like me but not really anybody else. Like I said, knew him all that time, and never saw him smoke a fag or have a glass of wine. Really on the straight, if you see what I mean."

The Loki Tony knows keeps Quaaludes on his private bar, in a Batman pez dispenser.

He wonders if Peters is high.

"He'd never seem to have anyone either, if you follow. No birds, no blokes, no nothing. Always on his own just watching. And looking like he wanted in but didn't know how to get there."

The Loki Tony knows finds someone to fuck every time he gets a bit hard so he doesn't have to take care of it himself.

"So, that was up until six months ago. He phoned me, told me he was going on one of his little personal vacations, you know, like into his head-land or whatever. Back then we were in the middle of recording the album, so it really wasn't a good time for that. He ended up not showing up to recording for two days, and on the third we went to his flat to get him but didn't answer, so we ended up doing some housebreaking."

Peters takes an agitated puff of his cigarette and Tony almost doesn't want to know what follows.

"We found him lying on the floor. It didn't even look like anything had happened to him. It was like he'd just stopped. At the A&E they couldn't tell us either and Loki never explained. Still hasn't. He was in a coma for three days."

It suddenly occurs to Tony that people like Loki, whose automatic answer to everything is to take something, drink something, or fuck something usually aren't the happiest of people, regardless of what they pretend to be.

It also occurs to him that his immediate reaction to this news, which is to go drown in a vat of whiskey, is nothing like that at all.

"When he woke up first thing he did was have a smoke and a drink. Been at it ever since. I watched him tear through speed and dope and pills like they were flavors of ice cream, man. He puts himself in stupid situations for a laugh. He walks down roads by himself. Goes everywhere in his stage outfits, looking so queer hoping that someone will try to beat it out of him. I once watched him get on his knees and...and...he fucked fifteen guys in a row with his mouth, just taking it. I don't know what the hell his problem is, but he's, well, he was never really happy, but he's something else now."

Tony remembers Loki's bleeding, blissfully curled mouth as he hit him in the face until there was so much blood that Tony just couldn't be hard anymore.

"What do you think happened to him?" Asks Tony as he flicks the very end of his cig and grinds it into the ground under his shoe.

"I was hoping you'd know."

"Why the hell would I know?"

"After his last trip into the ether he kind of stopped being cool with me. Think about it? He's our lead vocalist, right? How much time does he spend hanging out with us? He doesn't. He just keeps finding strangers to fuck and shit to take and bottles to drink. I'm a cool guy, but he takes all of it to suicidal levels. And I'm not cool with that. Once I tried to talk to him about it and things got...kind of physical."

"So, if I'm just another stranger he's fucking what makes you think he's pouring out his heart all over me?"

"Because you aren't."

Tony kind of wants to laugh. He also kind of wants to cry.

"When Loki looks around at the world it's like everything's just a grey blob. Things are things an he knows what they are but nothing means anything to him. He was always sort of like that, but its worse now."

Tony knows exactly what he means.

"Loki looks at you like you're made of gold, man. Like you're the first interesting thing he's ever seen."

Tony thinks that Peters is possibly certifiable. Loki's answer to his near death was to dope him up and go for a drive until he chilled the fuck out about it.

"I need some time to think." Says Tony and he more or less sprints into traffic, nearly getting nailed by a taxi in his mad dash across the street.

"Full blown loons, the both of you are!" Yells Peters at his rapidly retreating back.


	26. Chapter 26

Tony wakes up with beastly hangover in a prison cell with an indeterminate number of other guys. He figures he'll get around to counting them when he doesn't feel like he's died.

His jacket and shoes are gone.

He kind of hates his life.

"Motherf-" He begins but finds his throat too dry to finish it.

He doesn't know how long he lays in cotton-mouthed purgatory with his temples throbbing.

"Rise and shine, sweetheart." Tony hears the mocking southern accented voice but doesn't want to obey it. He feels like his body has been put through a cheese grater. "Gotta make your phone call."

That gets him going and before he knows whats happening he's got cuffs on and is standing in front of a lonely telephone jutting out of a white blank wall.

"Make it snappy, son."

Tony manages to cough up the word 'Phone book' and some amount of time later one is dropped into his hands. He drops it onto the floor. Bending down to get it almost makes him physically ill.

"Shit! Which hotel is it?" He mutters. He can picture the face of the old woman he'd asked and he can see her lips forming the sounds of the words.

"The Meridian!" He cries and it makes him cough until his throat burns.

The cop whistles.

"Wowee. What you doin at the Meridian? That place costs an arm and a leg."

"Just traveling." Says Tony as he listens to the phone ring and holds his breath.

"Hello, This is the Meridian Atlanta. How may I help you?"

"Can you put me through to Loki Lauff."

"You're joshing, boy." Says the cop.

"Do you happen to know his room number, sir? And who may I ask is calling?"

"It's Tony. I'm calling from..." Tony turns and looks at the cop. "Where is this?"

The cop takes the phone from him.

"Hello, this is Officer Harmon Gifford with the city. I'm sorry to have bothered you, this boy's clearly a bit touched. Just wasted his phone call. Sorry again to have bothered you folks. You have a good day, now."

Tony can't even believe it. He wants to cry as the phone is hung up again by one Harmon Gifford.

"Are all cops fucking stupid?" Blurts Tony before he can stop himself and the look in Harmon Gifford's eyes tells him that things aren't about to get any better for him.


	27. Chapter 27

Tony would say he's an expert in the surreal.

He might even venture to say that Dali has nothing on him, and that there's nothing surprising that life could possibly throw at him ever again.

When Harmon Gifford presents an impossibly tall man to him, whose wearing jeans, a flannel, and a cowboy hat, and who somewhat resembles Loki but can't possibly be, Tony wonders what in god's name is actually happening.

Tony watches Harmon Gifford come toward the cell with one eye and Loki with the other. This strangely homely looking Loki's got one hand stuffed in the pocket of his jeans and tony watches as he takes it out right behind Gifford's back, flashing his claw-like talons.

He flashes his attention back to Gifford, who actually looks apologetic.

"You're brother explained the situation to me." The cop says softly as he opens the cell door. Tony's a genius, but it wouldn't have taken one to know that some sort of con is taking place. Tony plays along.

"I'm sorry about your father, son."

Tony just looks at the ground and feels one of Loki's hands curl around his bicep.

"Thank you, sir. He didn't mean no harm. Father's not even been...been gone two days yet. He's hurting. I promise I'll keep a better eye on him, it's just I ain't really been myself neither since..."

Tony is glad he's not drinking anything, because Loki's sultry southern drawl would have made him spit it everywhere. He's even deepened his voice and butched it out a little.

Tony almost forgets that Loki's got waist-length hair piled under that cowboy hat. He watches as Loki talks the cop out of pressing any charges or paying any bail. They leave with condolences and an offer of help from one Harmon Gifford.

They walk out into the afternoon sun and Tony can't think of a single thing to say.

"That was..." He tries and Loki smirks.

"Don't mention it, sugah baby." He says with a high pitched feminine giggle and Tony swears that he can feel his head physically spin.

Loki takes off his hat and black hair spills down his back in inky tendrils.

Tony's breath catches.

"I really do need to keep you on a leash." Says Loki as he hails a cab and Tony groans.

"I don't know what happened last night, and I don't want to."

"Darling Gifford said-to the Arch Street Theatre-that someone's dog did a shit on the sidewalk and tried to leave so you pulled down your pants and started pissing all over the dog-"

"Shut up!" Tony rests his head against the cab's window. "You're lying."

"Maybe." Says Loki with a shit eating grin that Tony kind of wants to punch off his face, until he feels one of those long cool hands creep across the seat like a spider and tangle with his own. A feeling of peace begins to uncurl in the depths of his chest.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight ever again." Loki whispers.

"You can try." Tony whispers back and there's something very dark in Loki's eyes.

"After I play you the song I wrote for you I'm going to have to pry you off of me with a wrench if I ever want to be alone again." His tone is teasing but Tony caught the spark of ice in his hands and felt it chill numbingly at his bones.

"That's not how a wrench works."

"Oh really?"

"Not at all."

"Well, it's a good thing you're here to disabuse me of my silly tool-related notions."

Tony squeezes Loki's hand and Loki squeezes back.

"It's also a good thing that you're so good with your hands because I just might have-"

"Jesus, Loki. What did you break this time?"

"I may have hit Lee's favorite bass with an electric hammer."

Tony doesn't even know where to begin.

"A couple of times."

"Why the hell would you do that?"

"Because you were gone."

The openness in Loki's words and expressions is something new entirely, and the fact that Tony can understand his logic makes his breath catch in his throat.

"How do you even keep getting your hands on power tools?"

"I am infinitely resourceful, puddin." Loki's switch from posh git to southern belle gives Tony whiplash.

"Peters told me that he told you some things about me. And you responded by running headfirst into traffic and immediately getting drunk off your tits."

Loki's voice is soft and Tony suddenly feels ashamed of himself.

"What did he tell you that frightened you so much?"

"Well...first...it's just...that's not really how this...thing between us works."

Tony wants Loki to fill in the blanks. Loki apparently just wants to watch him squirm.

"I mean, what do we really know about each other?"

Loki sighs. "You are a nineteen year old probable technological genius with a streak of addict running through you faster than a river and an affinity for alcoholic beverages. You like boys, you like girls, you like the colors red and gold, and you pretend to be an idiot when, in reality, you have a wide breadth and depth of understanding. You are probably smarter than most of the people you have ever met, and you are tired of it. Whatever familial mess you've crawled out of has made you a talented, talented liar. It's also given you a love of angering people that surpasses any other love you will most likely ever feel, because you associate almost all emotion with pain, so you drink and you joke and you laugh instead of allowing yourself to feel."

Tony didn't feel this naked when Loki was inside him.

"Oh, you are also Italian."

It's not funny. None of it is, but Tony laughs anyway. The one untruth in the bunch of scythe-like analysis thrown out like an afterthought is just enough to tip the balance from horrifying to slightly less horrifying.

"You are also impossible to predict, despite how obvious you are."

The cab comes to a stop in front of Arch Street Theater.

"I better see you in the crowd. I've got something to give to you. Don't you run from me, Anthony." With that Loki's out of the cab and disappearing into the crowd that's already forming outside the theater.

The cab driver looks at Tony expectantly.

Tony hasn't even got shoes on. He sure as hell hasn't got any money on him.

He bolts.


	28. Chapter 28

Tony doesn't like to be backstage. He prefers to be lost in the crowd in the sea of bodies and stale breath and smoke.

He takes his place at the front and waits. The opener, that stoner chick who he still doesn't like, should have been out fifteen minutes ago.

He feels like Loki's cut him open, played with his insides, and rearranged his heart and his lungs and all the rest however he wanted. He feels scrambled and sick and terrified. He's managed to find a pair of shoes and a shirt and he still feels so very, very naked.

Tony's standing with his arms wrapped around himself. He can't even begin to imagine what kind of a song Loki's written for him and thinking about it is steadily driving him insane. He feels the urge to smoke like a kick in the stomach.

He sees a guy standing a person away with a wiry shocking mass of red hair. He's wearing a purple dress and he's holding a cigarette like its a joint.

"Hey man," Tony tries for smooth but he can feel his voice shaking. "Can I bum one?"

"Sorry man, this's my last one."

Tony knows that, that is possibly the biggest lie in the universe. If someone dumps you by saying 'It's not you it's me' it's more likely that they are telling the truth than if they tell you that they're down to their last cig, so they can't give you one.

Tony returns to his silent corner, despite the fact that the space between three girls in bright pink wigs and a guy in a dress is not really silent, nor is it a corner.

Tony is going to claw his own eyes out.

He suddenly thinks that he's going to murder someone if he can't get some tobacco in his body. He's like a giant itch waiting for a single scratch.

"I can spot you babe." Says one of the pink ladies, and they do introduce themselves, but Tony doesn't try all that hard to remember their names. He takes a cigarette from one of them and proceeds to make sweet fiery love to it.

The talk to him but he doesn't really pay that much attention. They clamor for his attention and they register no more on his radar than some flies might. He might feel bad about this, if his sense for the dramatic wasn't screaming at him that his whole entire fucking life was about to change.

Knowing that Loki knew almost everything about him made waiting for this song a strange kind of torture. His innately human instinct to not be naked in public is banging its head against the floor and screaming at him to run before it's too late.

When a tall man in jeans and plaid comes out on the stage it takes Tony a second to believe that it's Loki.

His dark hair is pulled back in a pony tail and he hasn't got shoes on. His feet are long and white and beautiful like the rest of him and Tony finds himself wishing that the man would go barefoot more often instead of his usual brightly colored boots and heels.

He hasn't got an ounce of make up on, and Tony can make out faint scars around his thin lips, like someone had sewn them shut.

Tony is captivated by them.

He feels like he's never actually seen Loki's face before, and realizes how strange that is all things considered.

The crowd is paying no attention to the normally dressed guy on stage, they probably assume he's working tech or something, and Tony doesn't understand how they can't see.

Loki's long, thick dark hair is pulled behind his ears and Tony wants to run his hands through it.

It's not until Loki's sat in front of two microphones and Wendy is brought out and sat in his lap that Tony realizes what is about to happen.

"Hello, Darling." Says Loki and the crowd's momentary shocked silence hits Tony like a slap across the face.

"Now, before panic starts, the opener for the tour, Mizandrine Walber, has had to skip back across the pond, so I'm going to play a little something for you before the real show starts."

The overjoyed wails and hollers of the crowd seem to shake the building.

"This is an old Jaques Brel composition called 'Port of Amsterdam', to start." Says Loki before clearing his throat and beginning to strum.

In the port of Amsterdam

There's a sailor who sings

Of the dreams that he brings

From the wide open sea

His voice is soft and as his fingers strum and make the proper chords Tony feels his mouth go dry. He feels like Loki's wasted in his usual bombastic spectacles, when he can sit and sing a simple song with such honest feeling that it's even more captivating-

"Awww! He's crying!" Squeals one of the Pink Ladies and the next thing he knows they are all hugging him and murmuring comforting things and telling him that he's adorable. Tony wishes that they would shut up and leave him alone.

He knows that he's adorable.

It's kind of his bread and butter, really.

He looks back up at Loki and sees him smirking at him and suddenly Tony remembers that Loki's song for him is looming out on the horizon, poking out of the water like a shark fin the size of a sail and teeth the size of human forearms.

Loki plays song after song after song. He plays 'Sell Me A Coat' with a jaunty grin , and 'In The Heat of the Morning' with the same. He plays obscure Beatles songs and well known old blues standards with pained warbling twists. He plays a couple of his band's own songs with various twists.

Tony feels like he's stalling just to kill him slowly.

The crowd is still clapping when Loki's dangerous grin softens into something else entirely.

"Now, this last song is something very, very new."

The audience's excitement is palpable.

"I wrote it yesterday and finished it this morning."

Tony thinks his heart has stopped.

"It's about someone I met on tour."

The audience's oooo's and ahhhh's feel like sticks and stones. Aimed straight at Tony's bones.

"A beautiful boy."

The audience goes completely insane. Tony suddenly can pinpoint every gay man in the room, simply because half of them are crying and the other half are comforting the crying ones. Most of them are holding hands.

There aren't as many as he'd thought.

"It's called The Ballad of Roman Red and Deifiction Serene."

Deifiction?

Tony wonders if Loki has invented a word for him. It sure as hell sounds like it. Then he realizes that, since Loki thinks he's Italian, he would probably be Roman Red and That Loki would be Deifiction Serene. In which case, that means Loki has invented a new word in the English language solely to describe himself.

Which is pretty fucking typical.

Pre-owned words wouldn't be shiny enough for him.

Tony smiles.

Loki clears his throat and begins to strum.


	29. Chapter 29

Tony isn't particularly musical, but something about whatever Loki's playing sets the room on the edge of a knife and he is suddenly hyperaware of his blood rushing violently beneath his paper-thin skin.

Tony watches as Loki breathes and those tiny little scars around the edges of his lips move as he breathes and prepares to sing.

"If you stared into the void and the void screamed back, baby you'd shake it

off your bleeding hands and

you thought me too good to be true till you knew that I'm not that good,

neither nor all that true to you"

Tony feels like everyone knows that Loki's singing about him and his face is on fire. He also feels like he's floating somewhere in space, because this strange, beautiful, and possibly demented creature was inspired by him to write a fucking song and that's something beautiful that not even the forest fire happening between his eyes and mouth can touch.

"If you ran away from home to join the circus, baby you've struck silver

off my tongue, but there is gold in the ether and

you thought me magic till you knew we

can never come clean, even if we do come true"

Tony doesn't know if this is Loki's way of saying that he wants them both to tell their secrets to one another or not, but suddenly he really wants to.

Whatever the hell that means.

The timber of Loki's voice shifts from loud and impassioned to soft and gentle and a collective chill seems to wrack the audience.

Loki looks uncontrollably sad. His voice warbles and breaks with it.

"You don't ask me questions

You don't want the answers

You don't want the silhouette

You don't want the dancer

You just want to forget

And baby I do too

Let me get lost in you

I don't want your name

I don't want your rose

I don't want your family tree

Just want you out of your clothes

I'll ride that household plague enough

fall from grace into graceless love

Let me get lost in you"

Loki's hands are moving so fast that Tony almost can't see them and his heart's pounding out of his chest and he doesn't know if he wants to sob or not. Before he can start to berate himself for being so wildly sentimental Loki starts to sing again.

"If you need a new face and name, daddy's money can build it

with your clever hands to cut it quick, our whispers can fill it

you can hack a hallowed hall out of the sky for a bell ring"

He stops and breathes and Tony breathes with him. Loki looks down at him and he looks back up and suddenly Tony notices that his face is wet with tears.

"Hush darling." Says Loki, directly to him and Tony forcefully tries to scrub the tears off of his skin as the whole audience pivots in his general direction, trying to figure out who their idol is talking to.

"Roman Red and Deifiction Serene!" Loki howls and the silence which follows is not that of a disinterested audience, but the silence of one that has been shocked beyond speech.

No one even claps.

"Your regularly scheduled programming will resume in, oh I don't really know, thirty minutes or so?" Loki tries for jovial but his voice sounds raw and open. He shoots Tony a meaningful look which Tony immediately understands.

He begins to disentangle himself from the Pink Ladies and sneak around to the back of the building, where people will be carrying things in and out and he'll be able to slip inside while avoiding most of the fan hoard.

"You're welcome." Says Loki before flouncing off the stage.


	30. Chapter 30

If traveling with Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost has taught Tony anything, it's that once you've found the people hauling shoes, you've basically found Loki Lauff. The man has more pairs of shoes than half of the shoe stores in the country combined.

They are always easy to spot, as they complain the loudest. Tony helps a guy with a box, and the next thing he knows he's standing inside Loki's dressing room.

Loki's laying across an old wooden vanity, smoking a cigarette. He's still in his flannel and jeans, and the images refuse to coalesce in Tony's mind. Even dressed simply the man still has the mannerisms of a peacock.

"Well?" He asks blandly on an exhale of smoke. And Tony walks toward him. In stead of speaking he plucks the cigarette from Loki's mouth and takes a long drag. It's not finished, but Tony stubs it out on the vanity right next to Loki's hand, leaving a little burn mark.

"That's an antique van-" Loki begins but before he can finish Tony's got a finger under his chin and is tilting his whole head up and back. When he kisses Loki he devours him whole, and their dueling tongues send sparks of light and fire shooting through their limbs. Tony only breaks away when he feels his lungs burning, in desperate need of air. They break apart with a mutual gasp.

"I wish you hadn't-" He begins and Loki's entire body stiffens. Tony begins to card his fingers through his hair. "I wish you'd waited until the end for that song. What am I supposed to do for the next three hours?"

Loki's grin is wicked.

"Wait."

Tony wants to die.

"Can't handle three hours, baby?"

"Not after that, you asshole."

"That's not a very nice way of thanking the man whose bared his soul to you."

"After I get my private concert later I'll thank the living fuck out of you."

"You better."

Tony wants to kiss Loki more than he's ever wanted anything in his entire life, and when he looks at Loki's mouth he sees that there are suddenly no scars there at all. He is incredibly confused.

"It was a metaphor." Says Loki as he gestures toward the flesh toned bits of wax on the vanity. Tony doesn't get it, but he wants to. He needs to know what Loki meant.

Everything is artifice with Loki Lauff. Everything means something else. Everything is allusions and and smoke and paint.

"Either help me get ready or get out." Loki's manner has changed so quickly that Tony thinks he feels his neck snap. "I've got a show to do."

"All right your highness, cool it a second."

Tony unbutton's Loki's shirt, starting from the bottom, and when he reaches the very top button their eyes catch.

They remain in that dim room, hanging in the balance together for god knows how long.

The ensuing two hours will be humidity and wind and cloud cover and the first whispers of thunder over the water.

Tonight there's going to be hurricane.


	31. Chapter 31

As Tony watches Loki play he can tell that Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost won't be lasting for much longer.

In the spaces between songs and outrageous acts he can tell that Loki is bored. He wonders if the band will even last to end of the tour.

The audience can't tell, but Tony knows Loki. He can read the impatience in the twist of his lips and the unconscious rocking of his patent-leather-clad feet.

With that realization comes a thousand others.

When the tour ends, so do they?

Before that song Tony would have said yes, if he'd let himself think about anything other than Loki's milk-white skin, and gorgeous flashing eyes, and long slender hands-

Tony mentally slaps himself before he starts vomiting saccharine little pieces of his own restrung organs on his shoes.

Even though Tony can't imagine a world without Loki in it, logical reality dictates that Loki goes back to London and Tony goes back...

Back to what?

Loki's gone home and Tony's still running, the one friend he had lost chasing some kind of romantic, erotic, neurotic ghost in lipstick and five inch heels.

And fuck. He doesn't even know how to go about finding Pepper. He met her on the interstate in Alabama. She was hitching a ride to nowhere really, just the next place. God knows where she's even from. Or if she has a home at all. She tried to play it like she was world-wise and savvy on all accounts, but when it really came down to it the girl had no idea what she was doing.

He left her in L.A and he hasn't thought of her since.

Tony feels like a class A asshole.

His hands start to itch and without any drugs doing loops through his system he realizes that he hasn't built, designed, or worked on anything more complex than odd jobs and broken instruments in nearly a year.

The thought sends a stab of physical need through him. He'd been an inventor of sorts since he could walk, taking things apart and putting them back together. The mechanical world made sense in a way that nothing else did.

That might make him like his father, but that's also what makes him Tony Stark.

Building and discovering and learning and tinkering and designing is what Tony Stark does.

Living in a doped up fantasy land with a lunatic that fronts a glam rock band is not what Tony Stark does.

Or not what he can do forever, at any rate.

Whatever his father is or is not, he can give Tony back his infinite resources and three floors of R&D.

It's not even like Tony saw him that often to start with. The Stark men avoided each other like the plague, only coming close enough for physical violence when Tony's mother pushed them together.

It has been a year nearly since he spoke to either of his parents.

Tony doesn't really miss either of them.

There is one person he does miss, however.

After all, it isn't entirely true that Tony Stark raised himself.

"Darling?"

It's almost as if Tony's snapped from sleep into wakefulness. When he comes to he's standing in the middle of the empty theatre, the only thing connecting him to earth is a single hand on his shoulder.

"Are you all right?"

No, he really isn't. But when Tony turns around and sees Loki dressed in brown corduroy bell bottoms and a shirt with an outlandish but not particularly outlandish design, looking a bit like a four year old awaiting approval, it feels like cool water being applied to a burn.

"I don't know," Says Tony, but when he threads his fingers through Loki's he can't help but smile.

Loki begins to lead him out of the theatre.

"I've never done that before." Says Loki as they walk.

"Done what?"

"Just gotten up on stage and played a song. No theatrics. No posturing. Just sound. And myself. It's liberating."

"Really? Even when you were starting out?"

"I always had a costume on. You've seen me. I basically live in costume. I always thought that, my voice wasn't enough, so maybe if I put on enough eye shadow it would distract the masses from my foul warbling."

"Your voice is beautiful." Says Tony almost before Loki's finished and Loki's smile could light up a small city.

"Transcendent?" He asks through the smile and Tony has no idea in hell how he's supposed to leave now.

"Always." Tony means it and Loki looks like he wants to cry, but never would. He holds Tony's hand even tighter.

Fuck it.

If there's no place for Loki in Howard Stark's R&D candyland then there's no place for Tony either.


	32. Chapter 32

When they are alone in their room they collide without words.

Tony leaps into Loki's arms and wraps his legs around his hips, effectively sending them both crashing against a wall. As they kiss, Loki pivots so Tony is caught, pinned bodily against the wall.

Tony feels Loki's hardness against his own and flushes, remembering it inside him.

"Oh baby, it's been awhile hasn't it?"

Whenever Loki starts talking to him in that voice he swears his brain leaks out of his ears.

"You've probably tightened back up again. That means I'll have to go slow."

Loki grabs Tony's ass in both hands and shifts him so Tony can feel him rubbing against his hole through the layers of cloth. That little spot inside Tony seems to have a memory all it's own, because Tony swears he can feel it ache.

"But I don't want to go slow, baby. I want you now."

He continues to rub himself against Tony and Tony keens.

"Right against the wall, with gravity helping you bear down, so you can take every inch of me."

"Oh god." Says Tony, eloquently and suddenly his clothes are being pulled off piece by piece. Loki hardly even puts him down, just maneuvers his legs free of his shoes and pants. Tony watches in awe, marveling silently at Loki's strength as he finds himself right where he started.

Only this time there's an impossibly thick, long cock pressed between his ass cheeks, flush against his hole.

Then come the slick fingers. One by one by one. Tony knows what he can have. He knows how wonderful and hot and full he is about to become, and the promises whispered by those clever fingers are driving him to distraction.

"Darling, please!" Tony whines. "I'm ready! I'm-"

"Ssssh." Says Loki and Tony gasps as he feels the blunt end of that thick length press against him.

His eyes open wide and his mouth drops open as it starts to press inside, slick and hard and relentless.

The stretch is singular and the burn is incredible. It is not entirely comfortable, and tony finds himself still struggling not to yield to his bodily instinct, and push the thing out of him.

Tony's shaking when Loki kisses him, and his kiss is gentle and soothing and burns in an entirely different way. Tony feels lightheaded and lost. When Loki switches to biting and kissing his throat the sweet vertigo only intensifies.

"I've got you." Loki says and Tony believes him. He let's out a long, low cry as the rest of Loki's cock sinks into him.

"Talk." Says Tony through his heavy breaths.

Loki's panting like a dog.

"Hmmm?" He asks, and Tony can feel his thigh muscles shake, quaking with the desire to push and pull and thrust.

"Love your voice." Tony buries his fingers in the taller man's long dark hair. His voice sounds utterly broken. "Talk to me, please."

Loki smirks. "Anything for you, darling. I love it when you say please."


	33. Chapter 33

"If I could, I would keep you just as you are, here by my side, past the end of all things."

...

...

"How does it feel to be owned so thoroughly, Anthony?"

...

...

"I imagine that it's liberating to know that you're mine."

This isn't what Tony meant. Tony has never been this hard and wanted to cry so much simultaneously. Or wanted to rip his hair out on top of it.

Loki is going slow.

"Lo-ki!"

"Am I driving you mad, darling?"

Loki shifts his cock inside him and brushes against his prostate. Tony thinks he may have gone blind.

"Last time you finished without me touching you at all. You came just from this!"

He stabs Tony's prostate again and again with rapid little shifts.

"Oh god!"

The slide of Loki's cock inside of him, even as it only moves halfway in and out, is enough to make Tony lose his mind entirely. He doesn't know what he's saying but Loki's loving it.

"Oh, the mouth on you, darling. Disgusting."

In between kisses that are more like bites and thrusts that are more like small rocking nudges Tony feels his orgasm to start to coil in his abdomen.

"Close!" He manages to cry out through a tiny gasp and Loki smirks as well he can around his own deep, uneven breaths.

"I know. Every muscle in your body's pulled tight, straining out of your skin; like a sculpture."

Tony can't breathe as Loki nudges his little bundle of nerves with slightly more force.

"I can see you inside that block of marble, and I'm going to carve you out."

Tony has no fucking idea what he's talking about.

"An effigy of a roman soldier, with a whore's mouth."

Hearing Loki say 'whore' is all it takes. Tony's orgasm wracks his body in lascivious ground-shaking spasms.

When Loki cums inside him it's almost like an afterthought. Tony swears that the warmth spreads throughout his entire body.

He groans, feeling hollow, when Loki pulls out.

Tony is awake but in a blissful state unlike wakefulness. He can hear Loki humming as he lightly scrubs what's left of himself away with a cool wash cloth.

"New song?" Tony asks and Loki doesn't answer. He only keeps humming.


	34. Chapter 34

When Tony wakes up Loki's gone, but there's a note on the pillow next to him. When he opens it 20's fall out and spill onto the electric green bedspread.

The note reads:

Darling,

Couldn't sleep. Doing some shopping. I'll be around sooner or later. There's a party tonight. We've also got a late flight tonight off to the next gig. Someone probably knows when or where, so have a drink on me.

-L

Tony smiles as he looks at Loki's strangely stiff way of writing.

As he gets out of the bed he feels an almost pleasant full body twinge, reminding him of the night before, but nothing like after that first time. He wiggles his naked ass against the bedsheets as hard as he can, just to see.

This turns out to be an incredibly poor decision.

Tony takes a long, decadent shower. Loki and he had cleaned up minimally the night before, but Tony can still smell the other man on him.

He watches the water as it swirls down the drain, loath to let any pieces of Loki disappear.

He finds Loki's shirt from yesterday on the floor and puts it on, after finding his own pants. He decides to forgo shoes entirely. He's just going to the bar after all.

On his way out of the room he looks back at Loki's note, sitting by its lonesome in the center of the bed, and gently picks it up.

Tony gets halfway to the bar before he realizes that he left the money in their room. He shakes his head a little at himself, but with the mood he's in there isn't a single thing on earth that could bring him down.

With a grin on his face that could rival the brightness of a dying star Tony decides that he's going to have a martini for breakfast.


	35. Chapter 35

Tony is getting better at this.

Despite the crippling depression of the inevitable crash, nothing makes a person want to get out of bed faster than being under at least three people.

He feels like he's being cooked alive and it takes all of his considerable tactical skill to maneuver himself out of the pile of limbs.

Tony ends up sprawled on the floor, naked. He looks up at a vaguely white ceiling blanketed in smoke and walls with rotten wallpaper virtually sweating off of them. His head's pounding and his stomach feels like it's been tortured.

The smell of weed is almost like an afterthought.

"Want some, babe?" Tony moves his head until his eyes finally hit the source of the smoke. Three guys and a chick are passing around a bowl made out of an apple. Someone's already taken a bite out of it.

Tony's never been big on saying no. He sits down in their circle and figures he'll head out whenever. At least some smoke will chill down the low enough for him to kind of want to exist again.

He takes a hit and lets it burn in his lungs.

And again.

And again.

The more you cough the higher you'll be and Tony nearly coughs up blood.

They are all talking around him but he can't really hear. Tony'd done lines the way bad kids write them after a few too many beers the night before, and it seems like even his bones are feeling mutinous.

"Where am I?" He asks some amount of time later and the conversation around him grinds to a halt.

"4th and Cedar." Someone says and Tony vaguely registers some people starting to get off of the bed.

"I mean what city?" Tony doesn't really know where he was before this, so how the fuck is he supposed to know where he is now?

"DC, Man!" Says someone.

"Home of the White house!" Says someone else.

"Casa-fucking-blanca!" Says someone else.

"Casa-fucking-nova!" Says someone else.

They are all laughing hysterically and Tony suddenly hates them all. He gets up more abruptly than any stoned person should, and falls into the lap of a blonde girl that smells like a living ashtray.

When she starts pulling on his cock Tony registers that he's suddenly ravenous.

"What's it like, being Loki's boy?" She asks and Tony wonders what exactly that has to do with the handy he's getting.

"All right." He says for no reason other than that the blood he'd usually reserve for vocabulary is doing the 200 meter to his prick.

The girl looks less than pleased.

"Suck me off and you'll get any five questions you want answered."

The girl hardly thinks and hardly blinks.

"If I help do I get five?" Someone who is either a strangely beautiful boy or a really flat chick asks and Tony doesn't really even answer before there are a pair of mouths dueling with his cock dripping between them.

Tony learns that there's nothing like being deep-throated while having your balls licked while someone holds the bowl for you.

It's kind of like floating in the ocean.

"Why pay for a piece when you can have apple-smoked mary?" Someone says.

"Mary a-la-mode!" Says another someone.

"Green apple crumble!" Says someone else.

Tony cums with a little grunt, straight down the throat of either the pretty boy or girl.

Tony watches them kiss with a vaguely disinterested sort of bodily numbness.

"How'd you meet?" Asks the girl.

"Called me backstage after a show. In L.A." Says Tony and the words feel like pudding in his mouth.

"How big is he?" Asks the boy and Tony laughs.

"Eight and a half fucking inches. Every time we fuck I feel like he's doing road work."

The boy gasps.

The girl blushes.

"Is he good to you?"

Tony isn't sure which one of them asked that and he honestly isn't sure of the answer either.

"Sometimes." He says and the girl frowns. "Now don't look at me like that, I'm not that good to him most of the time either. We're not good people."

"Loki Lauff is a genius!" The boy insists and Tony raises his hands in surrender.

"Whatever you say, darling."

Everyone in the room is glaring at him, and it doesn't take Tony long to figure out that he's no longer wanted. He grabs a pair of pants and shoes and a shirt that might be his before stumbling out of the shitty room into a shittier hall, and down a rickety still shittier couple flights of stairs into blindingly bright sunlight.

He has mastered the art of dressing while walking. He can hear them talk about what an asshole and how ungrateful he is and how Loki deserves better as he books it.

DC is warm and humid and a little aisle of gleaming stone and government in a sea of utter poverty and shit.

Tony can't really tell the difference between either of them. He vaguely stumbles toward the sound of civilization. He doesn't remember what hotel they're staying at, but he knows that Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost will be playing at the Martell Music Hall later.

Tony doesn't know when the gig starts or where that place is, but he figures that there will be flyers or something when he gets close enough to the shit that matters.

That's how he got along in those couple of stops in Texas? Tony isn't really sure, but it worked well enough.


	36. Chapter 36

A couple of hours, a dine and dash, three bummed cigarettes, and a five mile trek to the heart of DC later, Tony finds the Martell and stumbles around to the back, where he finds a brick wall and slumps against it, plopping firmly in a pile of cigarette butts.

He isn't high enough to stave off the pain of a body that hates what's being done to it.

He's nineteen and feels like he's eight hundred.

"Fuck me." He hears someone say and is delighted that it's the cynical british 'fuck me' of a man who knows he's in deep shit, rather than the leering 'fuck me' of an american man looking to stick his dick in something.

Tony's got rug burn in places he didn't know existed and he doesn't know how it got there. His knees look like ground meat.

He recognizes the voice too, which is helpful.

"Tony?" Peters sounds like someone's terrified mother. Tony can smell the cigarette he's smoking and blindly reaches out for either a drag or one of his own. He ends up with his had wrapped around the man's clean shaven calf.

"Get off, poofy git." Says the man affectionately and Tony feels a cigarette placed between his thumb and forefinger.

"Mate, where the fuck have you been?"

Tony shrugs and inhales. He looks up for the first time to see Peters standing in front of him dressed in something skin tight and purple. His arms are crossed.

"I'm honestly not even sure. I remember I was at that party Loki took me to. Next thing I knew I was piled into the back of a station wagon with a sack of coke the size of a small child, and there's a reason I've been called daddy. Then I was flying, man."

Tony starts coughing. It suddenly occurs to him that his throat is killing him.

"That's all you remember?"

Tony can see bits and pieces of it in flashes. He sees a redhead bouncing on his prick and its followed by a flash of two guys taking turns on his mouth and its followed by the taste of vodka and whiskey in one glass.

"More or less." He says and it seems that his throat suddenly hurts even more. He's fighting the urge to run screaming and scrub out his insides with turpentine.

"Loki is going to fucking kill you."

Suddenly Tony wonders how this didn't occur to him while he was wandering back to his master like a well-trained dog. Tony doesn't know what he looks like, but he knows it can't be pretty.

"You smell like a whorehouse and look like you've been mauled by a pack of bleeding vampires. These aren't even your fucking clothes. Tony, what are you doing?"

"Well mother, I'm just..."

Tony can't finish. Suddenly all he can taste is whiskey, vodka, and cock. His stomach churns unpleasantly twice before he's curled up on the ground, vomiting up the black coffee and waffles he'd inhaled before running out of the diner.

It's like acid eating away at his already sore throat.

He starts to cry. He feels truly disgusting.

"Oh fuck me!" Says Peters and Tony hears him disappear through the door his body convulses and he wretches. He feels like half of his back muscles have snapped.

Tony hears Loki before he sees him.

Even while cursing a blue streak his voice is distinctive. When the door slams open Tony moans. His temples start to throb.

When he's kicked onto his back and his stomach flips he lets out a cry. There is a lime green leather boot pressing into his chest with nearly enough force to crack his ribs. When Tony can open his eyes he looks up.

Loki looks like he could quite literally eat him alive.

"You gotta keep him on his side or he'll choke-"

"Kindly shut the fuck up Peters." Loki growls and Tony shivers despite himself. "Looks like that's all he's fucking good for, anyway. Either that or he stuck his whore mouth in a beehive."

Tony wants to die.

"Look, Loki, if you're done with him then let him go. Don't kill the kid."

Loki presses down harder and Tony wheezes. He doesn't know how much more his ribs can take.

"Done." Says Loki flatly and if Tony wasn't afraid of possible death before, he is now.

"Done?" Loki's teeth are grinding together and when he moves his foot Tony scurries away as best he can.

"Done!" When Loki screams Tony finds himself being kicked against the wall with such force that he actually can't see for a second. When he comes to he's throwing up again and Loki is looking at him like he's something awful that he's stepped in, which is actually the reality of it. When he takes a step closer Tony starts to physically shake. Loki's got his blood on his pumps.

The rock god kneels down. His skin is dusted with shimmering silver and black rings his eyes and fans out to sharp points. He's dressed in deep, dark green lace. When he opens his silver dusted lips to speak it comes out like a growl and the look in his eyes is terrifying.

"I am going to send you back to the hotel." He leans in closer and Tony wants to inch away, but he's caught between Loki and a brick wall. He begins in a low, soft whisper. "If you set even one fucking foot out of that room before I get back I will tear you apart with my bare fucking hands. Do you understand?"

Tony barely manages to nod.


	37. Chapter 37

The looks Tony gets from George could freeze fire. He spends the car ride back to the hotel, which he learns is called The Blanchaient, trying to curl up into a small of a ball as possible in the back of the car.

An eternity of him wallowing in nauseous self-disgusted purgatory passes before the car comes to a stop.

"The room's 701. Get the hell out."

Tony stumbles out of the car on weak legs. The taste of stale vomit is making him gag and he thinks he's probably dehydrated. George throws the key at his back and bending down to pick it up takes him nearly five minutes. Once he's managed bending down he realizes that there are at least five room keys on the ground and they are all ungrabable.

Tony is used to disapproving looks.

The fact that everyone he passes in The Blanchaient is disgusted with him hardly registers. Tony is far more disgusted with himself than anyone could ever be.

He flops into the room without seeing it and crawls to the bathroom, where he proceeds to drown himself in the sink.

Tony looks at himself in the mirror for what feels like the first time in years.

He's dripping wet, his mouth and eyes are swollen beyond reason, and he's ringed in kiss shaped bruises. It looks more like he has some kind of disease than that he had a what? a sevensome? an orgy?

Tony throws off the clothes he was wearing and throws them all into the bathtub.

There's a box of matches and he lights one before throwing it on top of the foul-smelling pile of stained clothing.

He watches them burn and smoke and sizzle and blacken.

He is sorely tempted to throw himself on top of them.

It is a testament to both Tony's boredom and discomfort that an hour later he's cleaning the tub himself. He scrubs and scrubs it past clean, almost forgetting what he's doing entirely.

After his near death experience he's not crazy about bathtubs, but he takes the time to scrub himself raw. He brushes his teeth until his gums bleed. He watches his blood swirl around in the bathwater and disperse.

After his bath Tony crawls into bed. He can feel bruises blooming on his stomach from Loki's assault and he doesn't even want to look at them.

He's terrified of what Loki will do to him, but his body is physically incapable of caring. He's got nothing in him but a hangover, the remnants of a come-down, and bile.

He collapses on top of the duvet, limp and artlessly sprawled.


	38. Chapter 38

Tony doesn't question much of anything until Loki's eyes pop out of his head and roll neatly into his outstretched palm.

They'd just been eating breakfast, or maybe they'd been laying together in a bed under a warm square of sunlight.

Maybe they'd been holding hands?

Tony doesn't know.

He does know however, that eyes don't do that.

There is a virtual river of water pouring out of his empty sockets, crystal clear and salty as the sea.

Tony's gagging on it. He wants to talk to Loki. He wants to ask him what's happening or ask him to stop, but this thing with Loki's face and legs and neck and long slender hands is void.

Water pours down it's front and and it's filling the negative space faster than Tony can blink.

It's so salty that it pricks at his ankles like a thousand tiny thorns.

This nagging itch quickly turns to agony as the water rises.

Tony offhandedly wonders if he'll be dissolved.

"Loki!" He tries but there is no response. The green eyes held like a pair of dice in his hands glint like precious stones. Tony reaches for them and falls into the water. He braces himself on his hands and screams as the water begins to peel away layers of his skin. His muscles shine like old scars as his skin is sloughed off and falls away, faster and faster.

"Loki!" He screams and through the agony there's suddenly a soft touch on his lower back. It pierces the agony and chases it away.

"What do you dream of?"

Asks a soft familiar voice and Tony latches onto it, looking idly around for the bits and pieces of him floating in the water. He wants to gather them all before he leaves but they are rushing away on the torrent.

"You call for me. What do you dream of?"

When he opens his eyes to a beige ceiling and a hand skating against his naked back soothingly Tony immediately relaxes.

"That was not a rhetorical question. Tell me."

When his vision clears and he looks up into Loki's unpainted, beautiful, placidly smiling face Tony thinks that this really isn't how Loki killing him for being a fucked up coked up slut is supposed to go.

"I was...all of my parts they were...split up into pieces. Just kept falling."

Tony does not expect Loki to pale past his usual nearly deathly complexion and hold him in a bone crushing embrace.

"What else?"

"Space was endless. There was nothing but it and you and me, and water kept getting higher and then falling. I could see parts of me falling."

Loki is kissing him. His hair and his ear and his face and his neck and his chest, right over every last kiss shaped bruise left from the night before.

"Was I falling too?" He finally asks and Tony takes a second to bask in the buzz his kisses leave under his skin before answering.

"You were the only thing still, in the whole universe."

Tony feels something wet on the back of his neck and on his shoulder and the means that Loki must be crying.

Tony can't even imagine that.

"It's so boring when you're not there." Tony feels the hand with long plastic black claws crawl over his shoulder and dip briefly in the hollow made by his collar bones, like there's water there.

"What's boring?" He asks.

"Everything."

That hand is stretched across the center of his chest and Tony feels like a doll. That hand dwarfs him. How large and long Loki is momentarily floors Tony as those fingers start to tap an unknown rhythm into his flesh.

Suddenly a sharp feeling of cold blooms between Loki's hand and his chest.

Tony gasps.

"Can you feel that?"

"Yeah."

The lay in silence, both partaking in the centralized chill.

"Loki, what is that?"

"You mean, you don't know?"

"You're the one with an icicle for a hand, man! How am I supposed to know why you're suddenly coming in at thirty two degrees below zero?"

Loki moves his hand to touch Tony's face and it's burning hot. The cold still swirls on his skin, right over his heart.

"That's you, Tony."

Tony places his hand over the cold spot, and presses his palm into the knocking of his rapidly beating heart.

As fast as the cold comes it goes.

Tony turns his face against Loki's warm palm, nuzzling the skin and hiding his eyes.

"I knew there was a reason." Says Loki and for the first time Tony wishes that he'd stop talking. He nuzzles his palm. Unfortunately, Loki does not require his input to continue. Loki voices whatever thoughts he wants to whenever he wants to; no more and no less.

"I knew that there was a reason I noticed you, that night in LA."

Whatever is spinning behind Loki's eyes is vast and immense and terrifying and Tony wants to run from it.

"It's cuz I'm so gosh darn pretty." He says and Loki shakes his head with a fond smile before getting out of the bed. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to write a song. You're going back to sleep."

"But Lok-"

"If you do not get enough rest you'll be tetchy and I don't want to deal with that. Sleep."

"But-"

"And in the morning you're going to eat properly. And if I catch you in bed with any white powders you'll be very sorry, indeed."

"But mom-"

"Don't try my patience, Anthony."

As Loki essentially tucks him into bed Tony wonders if anyone else on planet earth has mood swings that turn them motherly.

The kiss Loki gives him is anything but motherly and Tony is halfway to insinuating his tongue between those dexterous lips when Loki pulls away.

His cheeks are flushed and his eyes burn liquid green and suddenly Tony can't breathe.

"Sleep." Says Loki and slips into the bathroom. Tony is too busy drifting back into unconsciousness to realize that Loki's left his Wendy in her case, by the door.

Loki does not write without his guitar.


	39. Chapter 39

Tony wakes up to the scent of bacon and eggs and sausage.

When the smell hits his tongue he feels his salivary glands start to weep with joy.

When that scent hits his stomach it curls into a little fist and he groans in pain.

"How long has it been since you've eaten?"

Tony opens his eyes and sees Loki sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him with a silver tray of food in his lap and a glass of milk resting against his thigh.

He's wrapped in a purple Kimono that gapes open at his collar bones and folds under the tray. The way light filters in through the mostly drawn blinds causes shadow to pool in the hollows of his collar bones and his long dark hair to gleam and-

"Will you ever stop gawking?"

Tony suddenly registers that his mouth is awkwardly hanging open and he closes it.

"You always look at me like you've never seen me before."

Between two people with too much shame to ever be bashful Freudian slips are different and more intimate.

Tony blushes hot and Loki's sarcasm evaporates in the air.

"Eat your eggs." He says softly and offhandedly stabs a bit of yellow fluff with a fork before sliding it between Tony's lips.

When their eyes meet it's by accident and neither say anything until half of the portion of eggs are gone and Tony feels like his stomach is about to explode.

He picks up a spoon and carves the end of a sausage link off before holding it out to Loki. Loki looks at the unfortunately mangled bit of sausage like it's a UFO dragging a banner behind it insulting his mother.

"This is called a sausage." Says Tony slowly, in the manner of a kindergarten teacher. "It's food. You eat it."

Loki looks entirely unimpressed and Tony laughs.

"For me? Just a little?"

Loki somehow manages to look even less impressed without moving a single muscle.

"You're not the only one that worries."

Tony knows he's won when something in Loki's eyes softens. He watches as Loki bites the piece of sausage off of the fork without letting his lips touch it.

"Atta boy!" Says Tony with an absolute overload of painfully bright enthusiasm and Loki flicks his ear.

Tony watches as Loki chews on it slowly, as if pondering the heady and complex flavors of the bite of cheap, F-grade, hotel breakfast sausage. Tony swears it takes him ten years to swallow. He watches the muscles in his jaw and neck shift beneath the skin.

"Now I know why you're so skinny. It probably takes you a hundred years to eat a sandwich."

Tony is about to start laughing at his own joke when Loki picks up the glass of milk and guzzles half of it in the time it takes Tony to blink.

He almost imagines he can see it sliding down into Loki's gullet as he drains half of the glass dry. His neck seems miles long.

Tony groans.

"Really, Tony?" Loki takes the glass and the tray and puts them on the nightstand. "Children drink milk. How perverse."

The way Loki says 'perverse' it rings more like 'Bang on fucking job that one deserves a star'.

"Have you met me?" Asks Tony and when Loki takes his hand and slides it up his chest, so it grazes both the silk and his skin, Tony glides so their joined hands are entwined in Loki's long dark hair. "I'm disturbed."

"I hadn't noticed."

When Tony pulls Loki down by his hair and angles him for a kiss Loki lets him, and their lips meet with a languid, sharp sort of clarity.

They lay side by side, lost in a gentle push and pull, hands wandering in the lazy doldrums between passion and saccharine softness. Hands wander without direction, idly feeling everything but mapping nothing and naked ankles and feet tease as they hook about each other and break apart only to come together again.

Tony feels the low beginnings of a simmering arousal, the kind he's never felt before, start to curl in his gut.

It is not blinding and all-encompassing but another thing he feels in the context of soft hair, a gentle mouth, and miles of warm skin.

Loki really only smells like sweat and skin and a mediocre breakfast, and somehow the bone-melting comfort of it all makes Tony want to weep.

The moment shatters into a thousand pieces when something in the bathroom crashes onto the floor.

"Fuck!" Cries Loki and before Tony can breathe he's disappeared into the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

When Tony climbs out of the bed to follow him he's stopped in his tracks.

"Don't!" Loki calls from the bathroom. "Leave for the day! I've got to write!"

Tony wants to ask.

But at the same time he doesn't.

He puts on a pair of maroon corduroy bellbottoms and a purple shirt with a collar sharp enough to kill an unsuspecting dumbass before quietly tiptoeing out of the suddenly cold and empty hotel room.


	40. Chapter 40

Tony's heart feels eight sizes too big for his chest.

The sudden feeling of complete home while wrapped in Loki's arms and subsequent feeling of abrupt and horrifying loneliness have left him aching and exhausted.

As he slides dejectedly down the facade of the hotel room door and settles in front of it with his head buried in his knees he doesn't think about how much he resembles an unwanted dog.

He knows that Loki isn't actually writing and that whatever he's doing he doesn't want him to see.

He remembers what Peter's said about magic and takes time to mentally slap himself.

Loki may be enigmatic and beautiful and brilliant and mysterious and strange and-

"Fuck you, Tony." He says to himself and the empty hallway. "Loki Lauff is not some kind of enchanter. He's just a guy."

Tony knows that that's not right either.

There is the Loki who tucks him into bed and makes him eat and sleep.

There is the Loki who strangles him and kicks him and threatens him.

There is the Loki whose answer to every problem is a pill and a stiff drink or seven.

There is the Loki who wants to talk about his dreams.

There is the Loki who saws instruments in half when he isn't there, because everything is boring without him, with the apparent exception of acts of random destruction.

There is the Loki who knows everything about him.

There is the Loki who tells him nothing about himself.

There is the Loki who touches every inch of his skin with the reverent tenderness of a worshipper.

There is the Loki who is lying to him. Right now. At this very second.

Tony wonders if he's actually involved with fifty different people, all who want and need a thousand different things from him: each.

Tony's head hurts and he doesn't know what it says about him that the small breakfast Loki'd hand-fed him is making him feel nauseatingly full.

Footsteps approach and Tony wishes he could muster up the dignity to make it look like he isn't hopelessly loitering outside Loki's room waiting for his next scraps of attention and affection.

When the footsteps turn into Jonce, Lee, and Peters Tony really wishes he'd been able to muster up a bit of dignity.

"What are you doing out here?" Asks Peters and Tony can almost feel the sympathy rolling off of the rest of The Age of Frost in waves.

"Git's hiding a bengal tiger in the bathroom. Asked me to give them a moment alone."

Jonce and Lee roll their eyes. Peters pales.

"Let's get you some shoes and go out for a drive."

"Drive where?" Asks Jonce and Peters hauls Tony up by his arms and starts speed-walking him down he hall.

"Where do we ever drive?" Asks Lee and Jonce smiles.

"Around!" The three of them say together and Tony knows there's some kind of inside joke there. He can almost taste it in their identical grins.

How alone he really is, suddenly hits him in the gut like a javelin.

Tony hates this.


	41. Chapter 41

Jonce is 5'7 and must weigh 100 pounds. He's nearly thirty and looks like he's fourteen and his hair is pale gold and poker straight. Tony wonders how he ended up in possibly the gayest scene to hit humanity since the Ancient Greeks, when he can connect any topic to pussy in a second flat.

Occasionally he varies and directs the conversation back to tits.

But he's a good guy and a pretty salt-of-the-earth kind of guy whose got nothing against anyone and Tony likes him.

In every group of friends there's a Lee. He doesn't say much. They call him Gandalf so often that Tony forgets what his real name is halfway through the night. He also looks like someone with a hammer for a hand punched him the nose a few too many times. He's got hair dyed redder than an apple and eyebrows darker than ink.

They've been sitting in a random bar taking turns buying pints since the afternoon, well everyone has but Tony. They all buy for him.

By sundown Tony feels like they've all been friends for years.

"Mate, I'm just saying, if you see Drina Margoliese, you'll fucking die, mate. She's got tits like...like..." Jonce doesn't even finish, but its Jonce and they're drunk and everything is perfect.

Somewhere around midnight that all goes to absolute shit.

"Man, Tony," begins Jonce and everyone's awaiting something sexual and ridiculous but he's drunk enough to either be close enough to himself or far away enough to veer sharply past expectations and dead into oncoming traffic. "What are you even doing with Loki, man?"

Tony swears a cold wind blows through the room.

"You know, when Peters wanted to bring you along I was dead against because I couldn't imagine anybody who could spend that much time with Loki wouldn't be three parts git and one part the bloody fucking devil, but, mate, I like you all right."

It doesn't take a genius to see why Loki and Jonce don't get along and Tony is momentarily flabbergasted that the two could manage to be in the same room without bloodshed.

"You know, for a spangling woofter." Finishes Jonce with a disgusting belch and Tony can't help but grin.

"Fuck your mother, Jonce." Says Tony and even Jonce toasts to that. The atmosphere is bright until Peters goes to take a leak and Jonce jumps on the opportunity to grill Tony. It becomes obvious that he's been waiting for it all night.

"No, but really Tony? I mean, you know the life of a musician, though. I probably have illegitimate children in five countries. That's just how it goes. I figured Loki would have had six of you by now. He's got a fetish, mate."

"Fetish?"

"I've got a theory that he's one of them escaped Nazi experiments from the forties or what. Like an island of them! An Aryan Island."

"Loki's from Aryan Island." Tony wants to laugh, but he also doesn't want Jonce to punch him.

"It's the only explanation. He practically keeps you olive boys in a box in his closet. When we was in Spain he probably shagged every Moore in the world and it's because, you know, there'd only be porcelain-y bastards, like Loki, on Aryan Island. He's like angry at blonde people. He's probably sick of seeing 'em."

While Tony really doesn't like the idea of being another in a series, he recognizes that most people aren't like him. His type is apparently 'people'. He can't really fault other people for being a little bit more specific. He's also still stuck on the idea that:

"Loki's from Aryan Island." He says again and takes a drink to stop himself from cackling hysterically.

"That's not the point!" Jonce looks serious and Tony desperately doesn't want this to be one of those conversations. "Loki's an arse. I only joined this up here in the first place because if I had to play somebody else's music for them in studio with no fucking credit for the rest of my life I would have snapped, man. In fuckin' half."

Tony looks down at him empty mug and wants to cry. What is he supposed to do with his hands now?

"And look, if we're talking mad Loki's the king and his horse. Once he and me had this big row and he told me that he was actually Loki and I should do whatever for him, on account of him being a fuckin' god! Then he went on some rant about all the people he killed for a lark! They tried to tell me it was just the oats talking but I know what I'm talking about. The man is a mass murderer from Aryan Island."

Tony doesn't even know what to say. Jonce stands up and waves his arms. He sloshes a river of beer onto the floor and table before throwing his head back and bellowing:

"I am Loki! Liesmith! Skyswinger or what! Kneel before me peasants!"

It is a role that Tony isn't used to, but he finds himself maneuvering Jonce back into his seat and coaxing him to be quiet. It takes nearly five minutes and Tony wonders if he's that obnoxious when he's drunk.

"Look Tony, whatever you could do is better than that. He'll probably end up killing you. After this tour I'm done. I don't even want to be in the same city that berk's in. He's nine kinds of wrong. I just want you to know, because I like you."

Tony desperately wants to be angry. He wants to tell Jonce to shove it and that he's wrong, and that he and Loki are in love and that's all that matters.

"I know," Tony says instead, with someone else's smile. "But I'm not really jonesing after old age anyway."

"Stop being a fucking idiot."

Tony can definitely see why Loki and Jonce don't get along. He's still trying to find the anger he knows he should have when Jonce interrupts his soul quest.

"You're fifteen years old. What the fuck do you know about living or dying? Go back home. Or, if you want to play music, give me a call. Any fucking time. I'll give you a new fucking home."

"I'm nineteen!"

"If you're nineteen than I'm a fucking horse. What do you weigh, ninety pounds?"

"I'm not a fucking child!" And suddenly Tony feels like he could strangle the man blind.

"Oh yeah? Then why are you acting like one? What do you think you're proving? Running around in heels sucking the cock of the bastard who kicks you in the stomach in public? Proving what a man you are, are you?"

Before Tony knows what's happening he's laying under Jonce and he hears more than feels bits of his face snap and crack and gush with blood as he's beaten into the floor.

All it takes is a knee pressed against his stomach the wrong way and he's vomiting.

He doesn't even consider fighting back.

Halfway through a mouthful of blood and regurgitated beer and bile Tony lets out a final cry and loses consciousness.


	42. Chapter 42

There is a specific sort of discomfort to being in a hospital bed. It is so specific that Tony doesn't even have to open his eyes. He's surrounded by cheap cotton and cheap springs and the too-sterile air is making his skin crawl.

He hardly even wants to open his eyes

When he cracks open his eyelids its just enough to make out a bleary humanoid shape in the corner, as he knows he's going to have to face the blinding white in stages.

"Loki?" He croaks and automatically reaches out the hand with the IV in it. Tony has to force himself not to pull against what feels like a shackle, and rip his vein to shreds.

"No, Tony." Says a deeper, and altogether more tired and disappointed voice. Tony knows that voice. It doctored, nurtured, and guided him on his father's behalf for eighteen years. Howard was absent, and his mother only had eyes for Howard, and nannies came and went, but Obadiah Stane was the closest thing to 'being there' that Tony had ever had, before Pepper.

Tony had planned on never seeing either of his parents again, but Obie was more collateral damage on that front.

Tony'd figured that he'd see him again at some point.

He hadn't wanted it to be like this.

"Your...friend is on his way to Texas."

"No!" Cries Tony before he can bite it back. He's shaking.

"Tony, Loki Lauff is a musician under contract to complete a tour. That is what he's here for-"

"Loki wouldn't-"

"Tony, listen-"

"He wouldn't just leave-"

"He is contractually obligated to-"

"Shut the fuck up Obadiah!"

Tony still can't really see, and the tears he can't hold back any longer aren't helping matters. The room is swimming but he'd know that voice anywhere.

"Obie, you have to listen to me! You don't know Loki like I-"

"I get it, Tony. I really do. You're young. Your father pissed you off. He made you feel unappreciated, so you figured you'd make him sorry. I love Howard more than any of his various...ladyfriends probably ever will, but even I can admit he can be an asshole when he puts his mind to it. There's also some good-"

"No. There really isn't."

"The man's a genius-"

"And what good is that if he treats everyone around him like a piece of furniture in his own personal fucking funeral home!?"

Obadiah's silence is like a physical slap across the face.

"Look, I know that what I did was shitty and-"

"It's been forgotten."

"Obie, there's no way that everyone-"

"Everyone does stupid things when they're a kid, Tony. That's what youth is for!"

"Youth is about scraping your knees and falling in and out of love every week. It's got nothing to do with..."

"With what, Tony?"

Tony's got a million nouns swimming through his head and he doesn't want to pin a voice on any of them. He'd literally done every shitty thing he could possibly think of in the years leading up to his excommunication from the Technological Church of his holiness Howard Stark.

"He disowned me. Told me if I so much as set foot on company grounds ever again he'd have me shot. Haven't heard from him since. Haven't heard from you either, Obie."

That fact is what hurts most of all.

"I've slept in cellars and cars and mansions and homeless shelters, I've been in an out of jail cells and whorehouses and cities and states and gig after gig after gig. I've been hurt and sick and nearly dead and I heard nothing from any of you fucking people. For over a year."

This time Obadiah's silence feels like a personal victory.

"What's changed, Obie?"

When Obadiah throws a manilla folder onto Tony's lap Tony doesn't even have to open it to know what's in it.

Tony does it anyway.

The person in those pictures is not him.

Wanton and waspish and androgynous, a starving boygirl attached to the hip of an alien predator in lipstick with a handful of thick black claws.

Kissing, touching, stroking, strung out, oblivious.

Transcendent.

Photograph after photograph after photograph.

"It's becoming almost impossible to hide." Says Obadiah and Tony doesn't understand.

"HIde?"

"I didn't think you were this naive."

Tony's got a photo in his hands of him and Loki, holding hands in some hotel or other.

He can suddenly hear Peters in his head.

Loki looks at you like you're the only thing that matters..

Tony can see it in Loki's face and it makes his heart physically twinge.

"Stop that!" The picture is snatched out of Tony's hands before he can blink and he feels like a piece of him has been taken away. "Our people are good, but not that good! You've been recognized and you are one minor mistake away from being a goddamn laughingstock! We miss one single picture and you can't show your face in public! One fucking slip up, Tony Stark, and you won't ever be able to come home!"

There are pictures of him and Loki all over the floor and Tony feels like Obadiah has singlehandedly debased something sacred and profound

"I didn't know that coming home was an option."

"Look, you wanted your father's attention, and you have it Tony. You've got what you wanted right in the palm of your hand. You've succeeded. You don't have to do this anymore. You are so young and such a brilliant brilliant mind, Tony. Don't waste it over some faggot that whores you out and jitterbugs off the second it's time for him to bat his eyelashes in the direction of a new crowd of faggots."

Tony feels the tears dripping down his chin before he can stop himself and in that moment he hates himself more than he ever has.

"I know that Howard isn't perfect. I will be the first person to admit it. I'm not going to look you in the eye and insult your intelligence by promising you that if you come back the Stark family is going to become the Brady Bunch. But, after what you did, he's willing to let you back into any one of his houses, and take care of you, and leave you his legacy."

Tony hasn't built, designed, or fixed anything beyond the completely mundane in eons. He hasn't been in the proper circles. A robot that does your laundry, jerks you off, and can predict the stock market with damn near perfect accuracy might have been invented in his absence and the circuitry of it might be a complete fucking mystery to Tony Stark, previous technological boy wonder, current coked-up wind-up toy of London's most notorious rock-n-roll prostitute.

"And you and I both know that that's more than you deserve, Tony."

Tony knows that this is true.

"You humiliated him, your mother, and yourself. Then after you left you pursued this particular course with a vengeance. If I were you I'd crawl back to him on your hands and knees and accept whatever abuse he wants to give you."

Tony knows that this is true also.

"You've fucked up Tony Stark."

Tony's got a brick in his throat and a turbulent ocean of bile and anger and despair churning in his gut.

"I'll be back for you in the morning. I'll help you fix this. Like I've always done."

When Obadiah leaves Tony's got nothing to say. He shakes and he sobs and he shakes, alone in the dark, straight into unconsciousness.


	43. Chapter 43

Tony is coaxed from a sleep by the feeling of soft familiar fingers tracing invisible lines down his cheeks.

Before thought can intervene he turns his face and presses his lips to them and the fingers cease in their movements, as if kissing him back.

"You've been crying." Says Loki and Tony feels as if his heart might burst. "Did you miss me?"

Before Tony can stop himself he's nodding and Loki's small gasp hits him like a hailstorm.

"Budge over."

Tony does and he's wrapped in warm arms and tucked against a strong chest and suddenly feels both like himself and utterly unlike anything he thought he would ever be.

"How did you even get in here?"

"I am infinitely resourceful."

It doesn't take Tony long to feel that Loki's wearing a set of simple cotton scrubs, like a surgeon would wear. Even as he wonders what kind of maniac he's dealing with, he can't help but smile.

"I thought you were in Texas."

"And I once thought the universe revolved solely around a far-flung star. Sometimes we all need to reevaluate our perceptions."

Tony doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing at all. Instead he begins to kiss those beautiful long-fingered hands from wrist to finger-tip.

Loki lets out a contented sigh.

"Is that what that man told you? Mr. Paparazzi?"

"Hmm?" Tony intones between kisses.

"He told you that I'd gone and left you on your own, so that all you really had left was to sell your story, cut your losses, and run?"

Tony takes one of Loki's fingers between his lips and sucks it down to the knuckle.

Loki slaps him lightly on the thigh with his unoccupied hand.

"Don't think for a moment that you can distract me, Anthony."

Tony worries at the paper thin stretch of skin between Loki's thumb and finger and feels his cock twitch against him.

"You're just making me suspicious."

"That's not all I'm making you."

"Anthony-"

"Loki-"

"Your blatant attempts at obfuscation-"

"You wound me."

"You will tell me-"

"I thought you were gone."

Loki says nothing.

"I thought that this was it."

Loki holds him a fraction of an inch tighter and every ounce of tension in Tony's limbs uncurls even as his stomach roils and clenches with feeling.

"I thought that you got what you wanted and booked it, Loki. I thought I'd never fucking see you again. So if I want to touch now and talk later you better fucking shut up and put your hands out because everyone and their mother fucking knows that it's only a matter of time before you got whatever esoteric fucking thing you wanted from me and the first place and disappear-"

"No." Says Loki. His eyes are burning and Tony is terrified.

"No." He growls and Tony wants to run.

Loki is unreasonable. Loki is unstable. Loki is violent. Loki is dangerous.

And he is kissing Tony like he can coax whatever esoteric fucking thing he wants and desires and needs out into the open and snatch it away with his clever tongue.

"If I stay, you stay." He finally says. He's cradling Tony's face in his hands and speaking against his lips and the boy shivers. "If I go, you go." He digs his nails into Tony's scalp and Tony groans. "And if I disappear it will only be because you are by my side."

In the dark and the silence they breathe together and warm brown eyes meet unearthly grey.

"Do you understand?"

The word yes forms a ball in Tony's throat that he cannot force past his lips. He nods. and Loki places his long fingers around his neck, stroking his jaw and cheekbones and ears before moving down again.

"That is not good enough, Anthony."

When Tony whispers 'yes' it sounds like he's been chain smoking for fifty years and tears start to fall before he can stop them.

Loki catches his tears on his fingertips and presses them between their lips as they kiss.

When they break apart Tony registers that he's being held in Loki's arms like a bride, high off of the ground, and that the IV that had been in his arm is steadily squirting whatever had been being pumped into him onto the floor.

"Loki, I don't think-"

"Shut up-"

"Loki, how did you even-"

"Shut up-"

"Loki, how many impossible things do you expect me to witness without any explanation before I go completely insane-"

"Just three more."

"That's oddly specif-"

Tony falls silent as Loki hums and an icy cold spreads throughout his entire body. He gasps as it comes and goes, leaving him feeling better than he's felt in weeks.

"Loki, what-"

"Two more."

"God fucking d-"

"Close your eyes." Demands Loki. Of course Tony defies him.

The sight which greets him takes his breath away.


	44. Chapter 44

Loki is shining and statuesque in every possible way as whirling darkness whips past them. It is like Loki's torn an eye in the middle of the blackest and most violent of storms and they are tearing through it in some direction or another.

Tony burrows closer to Loki, but he does not close his eyes.

He watches as the bare lines of a room form against the weight of the blackness, bursting through and swallowing it as a another of many hotel rooms forms beneath Loki's feet.

Even once it is indisputably there and corporeal Tony can't trust it, and when Loki tries to put him down he holds on even tighter.

"Welcome to Texas." Says Loki and when Tony tries to laugh he gasps and chokes and shakes instead. "It only bites a little."

Tony's heart is pounding and his eyes are open but he can't see.

"Sssshhh." Says Loki as he sits them down an an obnoxiously embossed gold divan. Tony burrows even closer.

"Someone didn't close their eyes." Chimes Loki softly and Tony only shivers. His head is pounding in time with his heart and his mouth is dry.

When Loki speaks a crisp wind insinuates itself between his lips and seems to slither through the very core of him to pool tingling and refreshing and soothing in his extremities.

"I wrote another song for you, Darling. It's not much without Wendy, but I think you should hear it now."

Tony's body is tingling and floating away and Loki's voice is sweeter than wine.

"My will is my word, without expensive twists and turns

Your heart is my gaol, the kind of worldly cup you'd find on a tarot card

And I don't know, what can turn a death merchant's soup to stone but I

fell from star to star to catch my breath in the lungs of a pageboy ghost

My lips are red, darling

My lips are red

Not yet overcome

Not yet overcome

My lips are red, darling

My lips are red

A seed of yours in me

Ekphrasis for three

My word is my will, a labyrinth wrapped around your finger

and making my own pieces takes sacred war from refugee to lord

And though I don't know why the winter wind marks your skin

In stone love orchard I'll kiss your lips red and gold my thread

My lips are red, darling

My teeth are red

And when I'm overcome

Will you know me for one

My teeth are red, darling

My teeth are red

And when I'm over come...

The song is not done, but Tony's asleep and his smile is soft and childlike.

And Loki is content to hold him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was originally posted on tumblr, and then put on FFnet, but in light of FFnet's horrible glitch issues, The Age of Frost's new home will be here. All of the previous chapters and the conversations I had with readers will stay on ye olde FFnet forever, but all new updates will be here! Thanks for sticking around and I hope you enjoy the rest!


	45. Chapter 45

Tony wakes up when there is a knock on the door. He's in a bed, and while he didn't fall asleep in one, he's too used to this

"Sssh, darling. Don't worry about it. I'll see to it."

With a placating kiss Loki gets up and Tony closes his eyes again in the hopes of falling straight back to sleep. He's nearly there when he feels lips against his temple.

"Ready for number two?"

Tony mumbles something that vaguely resembles language and Loki chuckles.

"The second impossible thing."

Before Tony can answer he opens his eyes and shoots up. He feels Loki's hands soothingly rest on his back and curl around his shoulder.

He can also see Loki standing at the foot of the bed.

Glittering and scantily clad and primed for the stage on a pair of the tightest leather pants he's ever seen, with black and blue make-up ringing his eyes and dripping down his angular cheeks.

He looks at the Loki beside him, the one touching him, sleepy and unadorned and blinks.

"What the fuck!?" Gasps Tony as he inches toward the edge of the bed to come closer to the doppelganger. He moves as if hypnotized and when he slowly raises his hand to the face of this other Loki, this creature of the stage, his hand comes to a screeching halt, unable to touch.

"Don't be afraid," Says Loki. "He doesn't bite."

"Considering he's you, I don't think I'm willing to take any chances."

"Liar." Says the other Loki on a short dark breath and it sounds more like something sweet. The next thing Tony knows the thing has taken his hands and are smearing them through the oily unpleasant cosmetics and sweat dripping down his face.

"Are you like one of those dictators who hires decoys incase they get assassinated?"

When the other begins laving Tony's little finger with his tongue and then nibbling on the sensitized skin his first instinct is to pull his hand away.

"Nothing so paltry."

The other has sharp teeth grazing the web between his fingers and Tony groans.

"This is a really weird way of coming out to me as some kind of Gandalf or whatever." Says Tony as nonchalantly as he can when the other makes a slurping noise around his fingers and his cock twitches.

"Tony, I-"

"I'm not complaining. It's just, the next time you'd like to take my views on what is and what is not possible in a rational universe and run them through a cement mixer be considerate enough to leave me with enough blood in the thinking head to have a proper-ah-hysterical episode."

Topping Tony's list of questions currently is: 'When the fuck did my wrists become an erogenous zone?'

"What fun would that be?"

"Hysterical. Episode."

"Tony, men are not capable of having hysterical episodes."

"Thanks for the leaflet, Doctor Love."

"Women aren't really either."

"If throwing a fit or pretending to be an elephant was the only way I could get a good fuck I'd crawl around on all fours squirting water out of my nose."

"Even in heels and a corset, darling?"

"Would you both mind?" Drawls the other. And Tony and Loki immediately fall silent, almost abashed.

"While you're both bickering over who put the candle-holders where, I'm trying to get off."

There is suddenly a hand on his cock.

"And this realm's got proper electric, anyway."

Tony generally agrees with hands that cradle and tease, pulling sighs and puffs of air out of him.

"You'll not speak to Tony like that." Says Loki lowly and Tony swears he can feel the eye roll of his other like a crackle of electricity.

"Light of my life," Begins the other. "Fire of my loins."

Tony doesn't know how sarcasm can turn so quickly into something else.

"My sin. My soul."

There are hands buried in his hair, pushing his head down and Tony knows where this is headed and his mouth is watering.

"Suck it." Commands the other and Tony finds his nose pressed against the base of a thick, familiar cock.

"Fuck."

"That's it, darling." Says Loki and his other in tandem and Tony decides that this is really not the time for a nervous breakdown.

He starts to lick slowly, taking to it like a lolly, making sure to touch every inch of it that he can, as he knows that, that monster isn't going down his throat without another visit to the hospital being involved.

Tony wants to be able to take it eventually.

He wants to gag on it.

"Fetch some oil." Says the other to Loki and Tony swears he can feel the temperature in the room drop as he's pulled off of that cock by the hair.

"Fetch it yourself."

"What, so you can ravish him while I'm gone?"

"He is mine to ravage after all."

"I just jumped around like a trained monkey on stage for you for three bloody hours. I think I've earned him."

"You haven't 'earned' the right to lick his boots."

"Dear psychological complex lottery winners,

If someone doesn't remind me why I shouldn't be having a hysterical episode pronto shit's gonna get-"

The other bursts into nothing in a shocking rush of cold air and before Tony can scream he's between Loki and the mattress.

The mouth claiming and taking and biting sends Tony spinning through sensation after sensation. He grasps at Loki's arms and shoulders and slides his hands into his hair and pulls.

Loki pulls away to growl and Tony's lips feel bruised and swollen and tender.

When he turns his lips away Loki immediately latches onto his neck and bites down as he slides two slick fingers inside Tony.

Tony keens.

"I've missed this." Hisses Loki. "You're always so ready for it." He finds Tony's prostate and tweaks it between his long fingers.

"You love my cock, don't you?" Loki's scissoring his fingers and Tony tries to nod but throws his head back instead. He knows what's about to happen and every fiber of his body is crying out for it.

"Speak when you're spoken to, Anthony."

Tony feels that slick cock pressing against him, sliding between his cheeks and he swears he feels himself open for it only to clench around the ungodly emptiness.

He shudders.

"Yes!" He grounds out at last, hoping that it's the right answer.

"Do you want me to cum inside you?"

"Oh god."

"Fill you up? Make you nice and full?"

The head of that cock is pressed inside him, stopping just at the rim and when Tony tries to maneuver it deeper Loki stops him with a vice-like grip on his hips and inches in so slowly that Tony wants to weep.

"Harder!" He begs. "Please, Loki. I can take! I need it! I-"

Loki slams the rest of the way in, opening Tony up relentlessly until his balls slap against his hole and Tony bellows.

Nails and teeth bite into his skin and before Tony knows it he's got his legs wrapped around Loki's waist and is tilting his own pelvis up as much as he can to drill that fucking cock inside him.

He moans and swears and growls as Loki wordlessly fucks him harder and harder and harder.

"Let me!" He cries breathlessly. "On top!"

Tony doesn't know how he does it but the next thing Tony knows Loki's laying on the mattress and Tony is seated atop of him, impaled and panting and shaking.

The little bit extra he can bear down fills him in ways he's never been before and when Tony rocks forward slightly, it's entirely by accident and his every nerve ending sings.

Loki moans and Tony does it again, barely moving at all, just steadily rocking, trying out different directions to see what will make them both come, as Loki's cock grows even harder inside him.

When it pulses Tony shudders.

"Touch yourself!" Loki commands and Tony wraps a hand around his leaking cock and fucks into his own fist as he rocks back and forth.

Without meaning to he cums all over Loki's face and chest. The strands of white explode from his cock as he howls and cling to the hollows between his bones, and in his eyelashes and hair.

With a final long string of expletives Loki whines and thrusts up and spends himself as he licks at the cum splattered near his mouth.

Tony and Loki collapse in on themselves and one another as their chests heave with languorous greedy breaths.

"I love you." Says Loki between breaths and Tony freezes on top of him.

"I love you." He repeats more quietly and as Tony looks down at his cum splattered face and feels the sweat drip from his body and seed drip from his raw, clenching hole and he thinks of the swirling black void and the other Loki and he wonders how, when he hadn't cried in years, he can feel his lachrymal glands gagging for a sob for the second time in mere hours.

"Is that the third impossible thing I don't get an explanation for?" He croaks as he digs the heels of his palms into his eyes to stop the tears from spilling.

When Loki tries to spring out of the bed Tony latches onto his wrist with all of the subtlety of a bear trap.

"Don't-"

"Don't touch me!"

"Look, Loki I-"

"Remove your foul hand-"

"I'm just a guy, Loki!"

Loki freezes. "If this is the part where you tell me that, as a male, you're doing your American duty to only experience emotions through your penis, and that love is anathema, I will gut you and drape your intestines over my mantelpiece!"

"Well, I mean, you call us 'yanks' for a reason don't you?"

Loki's glare could give a glacier frostbite.

"Jesus christ! Look, I...please don't do that. I would really appreciate it if you didn't. But, what I'm trying to say is I'm just a fella! I'm a 19 year old kid! I smoke weed, I eat cheeseburgers, I drive around, and I do stupid fucking shit. Today I teleported across the country in your arms, gave your fucking thought projection guy a blow job, found out that magic actually fucking exists! I don't know where you fucking come from Loki, but around here there is no magic. There is no waltzing in and out of places in costume! Reality is what it is and you can't just destroy that all for me in the blink of an eye, fuck me till I'm hanging from the heavens, and make crazy fucking declarations and expect me not to just break in half! I'm just a guy!"

There is a long contemplative silence, but Loki does not reclaim his wrist.

"I fail to see what's so crazy about me loving you, Anthony."

"You are misunderstanding me on purpose, you git!"

"And, you don't exactly appear to be splitting at the seams. Unless I am mistaken."

"Fuck you, man."

"Aren't you just darling."

"Exactly. What are you doing loving me? I'm a piece of shit."

Loki's got a lit cigarette in hand and Tony wonders if he conjured it.

Loki the Conjurer.

It rings like cathedral bell.

One so old that it's cracked.

"And what do you think I am, Mother bloody Teresa?"

When Loki offers Tony his cigarette he takes it and their fingers brush peaceably.

"We need a bath." Tony says on a smoky exhale and Loki nods.


	46. Chapter 46

For once Loki is asleep and Tony is awake as they lay together in bed. 

It occurs to him with screeching clarity that Obadiah may have already set out a search party for him. That he will come back to that hospital bed and find him gone. In fact, it is already light out, and Tony has no idea what time it is, and Obadiah might have already come and gone. 

He doesn’t know how to bring this up to Loki without telling him everything, as Loki has already decided that the man was paparazzi. He sits in the corner of the bedroom, naked on the floor, with the phone nearly pulled out of the wall, and dials the number he remembers. 

One of the two put upon women whose number almost no one has, who do nothing but sit by a phone courtesy of Obadiah Stane for twelve hour shifts each picks up almost immediately. 

“Who may I ask is calling?” One of them asks and Tony bites his lip and sighs. 

“It’s Tony Stark.” He whispers and the woman gasps. “Tell Mr. Stane that I’ll come back when the tour’s over.” He quickly hangs up, before the woman can even respond, and rests his head in his hands. 

He doesn’t know whether he will or whether he won’t. 

He supposes he’s got an incredibly powerful manic conjurer of some vague sort with violent tendencies claiming to be in love with him and a pocket full of budding addictions on his plate, so whether he comes home or not is anybody’s guess. 

It’s almost not up to him at all, really. 

Content with his place in the universe, Tony leaps on top of a sleeping Loki, throwing his full weight on him and causing the man to yowl like a particularly unhappy cat. 

“Can you teach me magic?” Tony asks as he bounces up and down on Loki’s prone, irritated form. Loki gently shoves him off and burrows into his pillows.   
“The little I’ve already done has left me exhausted.” Loki mutters and he sounds nothing like himself. His voice is thick and languid and rough. His limbs are spread akimbo and his miles of long dark hair is tangled in a terror of artless knots. 

Tony has to fight the urge to squeal. “Don’t beat yourself up, darling!” He says instead. “You teleported hundreds of miles and literally split yourself in half last night. That’s gotta take it out of...” 

Tony trails off because Loki has already fallen back asleep. He takes his time looking at that sharp pale face, softened by sleep for the first time. 

Before he can think he’s reaching out to touch and before his hand can alight on flesh he stops himself, ghosting along the knifelike contours of his lover’s bones. 

That cheek nestles into his palm of it’s own volition, trapping it between skin and an obscenely high thread count. Tony is careful not to gasp as the deep even breaths tickle his wrist. 

His stomach rumbles and when he tries to reach toward the night table for the phone, in order to phone for food, he realizes that he can’t reach it without disturbing Loki. 

He literally has a palm full of drool in one hand and a glorious bacony future a foot from the other. 

Tony gently insinuates himself into Loki’s space, presses against his body, and allows the man to wrap around him as he will. 

“Fuck it.” Mutters Tony as he stares at the ceiling until it’s lost in a blur of Loki’s skin and scent and breath.


	47. Chapter 47

Another day and another plane ride, all though this one is different. Loki is still absolutely exhausted. Too exhausted to tart himself up or wear ridiculous shoes or flounce about like the lovechild of Marie Antoinette and an overgrown peacock. 

Tony forces him into something resembling a normal outfit, and shoves him out the door into the waiting car. 

George is sitting up front, in all of his mustachioed glory, looking like he’s about to explode with rage. 

“What’s wrong with him?” George snaps as Tony folds Loki’s endless legs gently into the back of the car. 

“He’s just tired.” 

George’s snort reads like snarl. 

“You ever hop across the country playing four gigs a week for months? You’d be knackered too.” Tony says easily as he slides in next to Loki who proceeds to collapse against him at an awkward angle. 

“Brush my hair.” Says Loki to no one in particular and George spins around and speeds them toward the airport. 

“You think he’ll be alright by tomorrow night?” Asks George and Tony says nothing. 

“Got a full house in Chicago.” 

“There’s a full house in every city. And why wouldn’t there be? You’ve got pure gold in your hands.” 

This time George is silent. 

Maneuvering all 6’2 of Loki through the airport and onto the plane is another interesting experience, as he is as floppy and uncoordinated as a newborn lamb. They get many strange looks. 

If Tony didn’t find it so incredibly adorable he might be inclined to complain. 

When they are finally seated in the plane and Loki tries to curl around him, despite the space restrictions, Tony let’s out a long sigh. 

“I was serious.” Says Loki without opening his eyes and Tony nods. 

“I know.” He replies without an inkling as to the context. 

Loki rolls his eyes beneath his eyelids and the skin looks delicate and thin enough to snap. 

“Brush my hair.” He says. 

“With what? Are you hiding a comb somewhere unspeak-” 

In a soft, tingling prick of cold against Tony’s palm a soft-bristled brush materializes from the air. It’s green and black and slender with a virtual forest of thick bristles. 

He gasps. 

“Now brush, peasant.” Demands Loki and Tony merely regards him with an archly raised eyebrow. “Oh fine, please brush, peasant.” 

Loki allows himself to melt back into the seat, only to snap back into reality when Tony doesn’t start to brush. 

“Now darling, you know I’d never ask you to be polite.” 

“Then what in the name of all that has ever lived and died do you want?” 

When Tony tilts his head back and lips upwards, begging for a kiss, Loki’s put upon sigh is entirely for show. 

Their kiss causes a man to nearly gag on his cigarette. 

In it’s aftermath Tony takes a particularly knotted lock of Loki’s inky black hair in hand and takes the brush to it. 

It slides through like water. 

“Holy shit.” Tony says with a jaunty grin. “Magic hairbrush!” 

“Something like that.” 

“Is this horsehair?” 

“Basically.” 

“I get the feeling that by ‘basically from a horse‘ you mean ‘basically from a unicorn’.” 

Loki’s laugh is soft and low and easy. They spend the rest of the plane ride in companionable silence as Loki drifts in and out of sleep and Tony’s brushing gradually devolves into him playing with Loki’s hair and caressing his scalp.


	48. Chapter 48

Tony has the sneaking suspicion that every city is the same. Every place feels like every other place, and every hotel feels like every other hotel, and every venue feels like every other venue. Every last strung out scantily clad man and woman poking at androgyny with an outrageous stick feels like every other counterculture clone. 

As the band tunes and the sound guys work at getting the mix just so the boredom practically rolls off of Loki in waves. 

Tony’s been laying on the floor of the venue for nearly an hour chain smoking while throwing his own shoes up in the air and catching them. 

He’s not doing much better. 

The looks Jonce keeps giving him certainly aren’t helping. 

They are apologetic and disappointed and deeply deeply sad. 

Peters looks like he’s on the verge of performing a dashing rescue at any second. 

They’re making Tony’s skin crawl. 

Then again, it’s entirely possible that smoking a pack in about an hour is just wigging him out a little. 

How it’s only been two days since the man kicked the snot out of him and put him in the hospital is something that Tony can’t even begin to understand. He feels like he’s lived a hundred years. 

Every time he looks up at Loki he swears he can feel another grey hair sprout. The man is clearly exhausted beyond reason. He’s singing in a brittle voice from a chair he needs to keep being propped up on before he slumps onto the floor. Tony has no idea how Loki’s supposed to perform tonight for three hours if he can’t even fucking sit in a chair. 

“Oi, Tony.” 

Without even opening his eyes, Tony knows Jonce’s voice. 

“Yeah?” He returns as he opens his eyes and looks squarely up the man’s nostrils. He laughs and Jonce looks confused. 

“Got some bats in the belfry.” Says Tony through a giggle and the man’s confused look verges on existential crisis. 

“I just wanted to apologize.” 

“For?” Asks Tony and Jonce splutters. 

“You straight, mate?” 

“Just some fags.” 

Tony lights his last one with a Loki-like flourish. 

“I beat the shit out of you.” 

“Oh!” Tony had forgotten. 

“Put you in hospital.” 

“Right. Yeah.” 

“Aren’t you even a little...peeved in my general direction about it?” 

Tony sits up and places his chin in his hand. He takes his time inhaling and exhaling smoke. 

“Jonce,” He begins with a certain unconscious gravitas. “The universe is an infinitely vast and fascinating place, wouldn’t you say?” 

Jonce nods, obviously more out of guilt than understanding. 

“Well, so if in this cosmic jumble where anything goes, it’s more probability’s fault than anything that you’d punch me. Hell, have you met me? It’s a miracle I only get punched half as much as I do.” 

“Tony, I didn’t just punch-” 

“Do I look like somebody who got crushed by a musician-shaped boulder?” 

“Man, I remember-” 

“You’re not as strong as you think you are. Look at me, an inning with you and I could skip to the moon if I-” 

Could Loki take him the the moon? 

Can magic do that? 

Now he’s looking up at Loki and he looks so tired but still somehow angelic under the stage lights and Tony wants so very much to kiss him and tuck him into bed. 

And kiss him. 

When Loki blows Tony a small, flirty little kiss his heart glows warm and when he catches it he swears he can feel it brush his palm. 

Jonce clears his throat. 

“Well, for what it’s worth, Tony, I just feel really-” 

“Don’t.” Says Tony jovially on a languorous exhale of gently curling smoke. “If it makes you feel better, I’m sure Loki’s got some sort of terrible vengeance in the cards for you.” 

Jonce pales. 

“In fact, I’d say that you’re in for a royal flush of terrible vengeance.” 

“Now Tony-” 

“I don’t give two fucks what happens to me. You could’ve killed me and I wouldn’t even’ve haunted you for a second, man. Just go lay in the dark and be done. No harm no foul.” 

This does not seem to comfort Jonce in the slightest. 

“But Loki on the other hand,” Tony swears that there are some kinds of conversations which you can’t have without a cigarette. Ones involving threats top that list. “Well, you’ve seen The Exorcist, right?” 

“Yeah.” Jonce is sweating. 

“Me too.” 

Tony closes his eyes and Jonce knows that he’s been dismissed.


	49. Chapter 49

In Loki’s dressing room there is a white pinstriped wooden table in the middle of a semi-dingy room with sallow lighting and an eclectic mix of tacky, over-expensive furniture. 

Tony finds this remarkably odd. 

When he rests his hands down on it as he leans toward the mirror behind it things get even stranger. 

The white lines are crushed to dust beneath his palms. 

Loki has had a table pinstriped with cocaine. 

Tony is in the middle of cackling hysterically and sucking coke off his fingers like loose cake batter when Loki falls onto the floor of his dressing room in a heap of tangled exhausted limbs. 

“Hiya baby!” Trills Tony and Loki groans from his place on the floor. 

“Get out of my stuff.” 

“Now, that’s no way to talk to your dear Tony.” 

“I am going to defenestrate you.” 

“Sounds sexy.” 

“What did I tell you about cocaine, Anthony?” 

“That it’s awesome and should be experienced in the place of feelings?” 

Loki does not have the energy for a proper death glare, but Tony knows what a wounded animal looks like when he sees one. 

“So tuck in, doll face-” 

“Tony-” 

“Before all the getting’s been got-” 

“Anthon-” 

“Keeps you whipping thin, and eternally young, well-as young as you live to be-” 

“Get out.” 

“But, baby-” 

“I don’t want you when you’re fucking like this. And neither will anyone else. Go fuck off until you’re-” 

Tony drags Loki up by his hair and when Loki opens his mouth to let out a cry Tony kisses him desperately and forces his tongue past his lips. 

In a matter of seconds Loki’s biting down hard on that questing tongue and Tony’s spitting out blood and slapping Loki across the face so hard that Loki’s neck cracks and the sound rings in the tiny room. 

“I thought you loved me.” Whispers Tony as he salivates blood and Loki spits more onto his face. 

“Get out.” Loki growls and Tony swears he feels something spark against his skin, something repulsive and searing as a live wire. 

Tony flees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED HANNIBAL GO WATCH HANNIBAL IT HAS SWALLOWED MY LIFE OH FUCKING JESUS ASDFKJASDLKFJQIFPIJJFOEJF MADS IS SO SEDUCTIVE HE COULD TOTALLY EAT ME IF HE WANTED TO ANY CAPACITY LAWD JESUS HELP 
> 
> also thanks for reading. and did any y'all see iron man 3? cause I fucking did. and i thought that shit was tight.


	50. Chapter 50

Loki’s jumping around and writhing on stage like a man possessed and Tony knows that it’s no devil that’s got him, but something about that image makes him hard. 

He’s rubbing against whoever’s in front of him and everything is coarse and loud and godly flashing light. 

Then he knows that he’s got to get another line in him and the need eclipses anything that his boner wants. 

He’s not been in the bathroom for a minute before he’s recognized for what he is: a single itch in search of a single scratch. 

The man’s heavyset and dressed in a shirt made of wall paper and painted on jeans the color of tin. He’s doing a line off of the sink. 

Tony isn’t sure what the man says, but he wants some of that. 

It turns out the man wants something in return. 

Without Tony actually speaking a word a deal is struck and tony finds himself kneeling on the ground in front of the man, gagging on a cock. 

He’s grabbing onto his own heels just to hold onto something and the man’s got his hands on his jaw, digging into his flesh and holding him stock still as he gags. 

Tears are rolling down his cheeks as the man demands that he swallow, and takes his sweet time pumping his seed down his throat. 

When Tony’s done crying the man is gone and there’s a little plastic bag full of the stuff in his hand. 

Tony digs in a finger and shoves some up his nostrils. 

He is speeding faster than light and the world is so slow. 

He’s dancing when he’s invited to an after party by a girl with miles of eyelashes. He knows that the concert won’t be over for another hour at least, but going anywhere sounds so unbelievably good. It feels like with every sway of her full hips she’s putting cool water on a burn. 

He follows her into a station wagon splatter painted with purple and orange and hubcaps that have been turned into small spinning mosaics. It’s packed with an illegal amount of people. And the guy driving is drinking from a bottle while he swerves them toward wherever they’re headed. 

It’s a mansion on a sprawling green lawn. It’s got fucking columns up front. Tony’s so preoccupied by them as they gleam that when he’s suddenly standing inside the house and a girl (who might be the same as before) is swaying in front of him, he doesn’t know how he got there, and he figures that he might as well take her ass in both hands and squeeze. 

Tony’s got many hobbies, but he’s got to put this one at the top of his list somewhere. 

He’s broken away from the fray to find a quiet place and a flat surface but when he’s laid down his line somebody has the audacity to interrupt him. 

“Tony fucking Stark!” 

Tony freezes halfway between hell and a more specialized hell. 

“Holy fuck man! It is you! I guess it’s true what they say, about you running away to join the faggot circus!” 

Tony turns to look at the fucker and can’t place his name or face. He’s somewhere between unattractive and average and has got a crooked nose and crooked teeth. His hair is a shocking shade of pale gold. 

“It’s me, Jools, from that conference in Paris about two years back!” 

Tony vaguely remembers the city of Paris. Or something. 

“Not surprised you don’t remember! You stole a bottle of absinthe from a street performer and nearly burned a five star restaurant to the ground! There were like thirty people inside it! It was the craziest shit I’ve ever seen in my life!” 

Tony suddenly does remember. 

“If it wasn’t for your dad you’d probably be locked up somewhere! You’re fucking legendary!” 

He feels sick. 

“Man, don’t you know whose house this is?” 

Tony doesn’t. He has no desire to ever know anything again. 

“It’s Chasey and Patti Denholme’s place!” 

Tony doesn’t know why he should care. 

“You fucked Patti Denholme in the back of her father’s car in Prague. She kept telling everyone she was preggers, because she’s some kind of psycho and is always fucking pregnant according to her, and Old Man Denholme wanted you shot! It was the craziest shit-” 

“What are you, the Ghost of Christmas Screw You? Jesus, Julian-” 

“It’s Jools-” 

“Bugger off-” 

“Picked up Loki’s accent! And his jacket too! I can’t believe it. You would get your kicks banging a bloke in a dress!” 

Tony just wants to be left alone with his cocaine. Now that all of these things he’s disremembered are stitching themselves back together Tony contemplates drowning in a vat of whiskey and calling it a life. 

“Did you want something?” Asks Tony and Jools‘ smirk is physically chafing. 

“Yeah, Chasey wants her go.” 

“Who?” 

“Chasey Denholme. Daughter of William Denholme, CEO of Denholme Pharmaceuticals. Sister of Patti Denholme, who you fucked in the back of her dad’s personal gilded Rolls a couple of summers ago in Prague.” 

Tony wonders when homicide began to theoretically feel like ice cream. 

“Chasey’s always been jealous of Patti, because she’s the hot one. Chicks got legs longer than the fucking equator, man. But anyway, Chasey wants her go.” 

“What am I? The bloody Stark-Go-Round?” 

“Come on, don’t be a prick. Everyone knows your dick’s wetter than a goddamn rainforest.” 

Tony has nothing to say to this guy that doesn’t involve violence. 

“But look, I didn’t just come with a shit storm. I came to help you out too. Look, Mayhew cooked up some moonshine. I brought you a cup. It’ll help you pretend the cow’s your faggy bloke.” 

Tony takes the cup in his hand and downs half of it in one shot. 

Then he does a line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you couldn't tell by my basically non-related questions at the ends of chapters i am desperate for you all to talk to me. because i haven't slept in two days. but mostly because i love you. 
> 
> 1\. How is your day going? I realize if it was going well this chapter probably ruined it a little. ummmm  
> 2\. Do you have a moment to talk about David Bowie?  
> 3\. Anybody see the new episode of Hannibal? I did. And let me tell you, I'll have what he's having. The show's official tumblr commented on like two of my liveblog posts and I'm freaking out because that means they see all of my posts about how i want to rub my face all over Hannibal's ties and my shitty edits and fanmixes and they know that my dad and I did shrooms together and thats weird. 
> 
> thanks for reading duckies


	51. Chapter 51

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is stuff and things and hot redheads.

When Tony wakes up in the trunk of a car his first instinct is to flip the fuck out. 

Once he realizes that his entire body is a singular throbbing cramp his first instinct is shot in the foot faster than he can groan. 

He can hear people fucking. 

The car is rocking back and forth and the cold metal is vibrating with the sounds of their vigorous lovemaking. 

Tony screams. 

As the trunk’s popped open and he’s pulled out by his ankles, flailing and onto the forest floor he keeps on screaming. A half naked middle aged man and woman are standing over him looking horrified. 

“Oh god! Jimmy!” Cries the woman and when Jimmy kicks him in the stomach he’s suddenly too busy retching to scream. 

“Jimmy! What the fuck is wrong with you!” 

“Now don’t you start!” 

“Get him some meadow tea!” 

Jimmy ambles off to the other end of the car to get some meadow tea and the woman kneels down beside him. She’s got long greying-red hair and her skin has been leathered by the sun and her eyes are kind. 

“My names’ Lenore.” Says the woman as she pats his back soothingly. 

Tony’s throat is killing him and his body is killing him and he’s freezing. 

“How did you get in here?” Gruffs Jimmy as Lenore wipes spittle off of his face with the back of her hand and wraps his body in a blanket. 

This is the first time that it occurs to him that he’s naked. 

“Now, Jimmy, relax-” 

“There’s a naked boy in our goddamn trunk Lenore! He was probably in there the whole time we were...we were...” 

Jimmy crudely mimes sex by moving his hips as if that somehow makes it all less crass and Lenore chuckles as if it’s perfectly charming. 

Jimmy is a tall, knobby man covered from head to toe in thick brown hair with a beard down to his nipples and Tony really didn’t need to see that. 

“Now, I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Honey, how’d you end up in our trunk?” Lenore takes a small mason jar of yellow-ish liquid from Jimmy and passes it to Tony, who takes his time sipping on it until his throat feels less like its been assaulted. 

“I went to a party last night after a concert,” Tony begins and it feels like he’s speaking through chunks of gravel. “Some asshole named Jude gave me a cup of moonshine.” Tony swears he’s going to fucking kill that kid if he ever remembers what he looks like. “I woke up naked in your trunk.” 

Jimmy is cackling hysterically. Lenore is kindly doing her best not to laugh, but there is mirth in her eyes until she realizes 

“You’ve been in that trunk for nearly a day!” She cries. “Oh my god! you poor child!” She punches Jimmy softly in the shoulder. “When we get back! You need to have a talk with your son! He could have killed this kid over a prank-” 

“Allen’s probably still unconscious. Looks like he and his buddies were drinkin the same stuff, Lenore. No harm done-” 

“Now Jimmy-” 

“A day?” Asks Tony before he can even process it. “A WHOLE FUCKING DAY?” 

“Jesus boy, calm down. Got somebody waiting for you at home or something?” 

“Oh Jimmy, of course he does!” 

“I was just making conversation Lenore...” 

Tony isn’t sure if Loki’s waiting for him or not, or if that even counts as a home. Loki’d told him to get out and he’d gone. What if he left for the next gig without him and this was it? Tony wouldn’t really blame him. 

“Nobody’s waiting for me.” Says Tony finally and he feels like he’s been stabbed. 

The bickering couple falls quiet. 

“Do you have anywhere to go?” Asks Lenore finally. 

“Yeah, anywhere I want.” Says Tony but somehow that complete and total freedom feels like a vice around his heart. 

He just wants to go back to Loki. He’s pretty sure he’s staying at some hotel with gold in the name, but Tony doesn’t know which one or where it is, or where he even is currently. For all he knows Loki’s already on his way to the next gig. 

“Where am I?” 

“Bout three-four hours outside of Chicago.” Says Jimmy. “This is Lenore’s and my holiday spot. This was supposed to be a vacation.” 

Tony wants to punch something. Something kind of like the fabric of reality. Right in the fucking face. 

But he’d settle for Jimmy. 

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Tony begins smoothly instead of pursuing a course of glorious bloody violence. “You give me a pair of pants and shoes, and the next car to drive by I’ll hitch on.” 

Lenore disagrees and Jimmy approves wholeheartedly simultaneously. 

It doesn’t matter really. 

Tony’s going to do what he’s going to do. 

Like he’s always done. 

When Jimmy throws a pair of overalls at him it feels like bricks and nearly knocks him over. The shoes that thump on the ground next to him feel like miniature earthquakes. 

“Throw in a meal and I’ll go stand by the side of the road and leave you to your holiday.” 

“Beef wellington Messer?” Asks Jimmy with a toothy grin and Lenore looks reproachfully on as her husband begins to dig around in the car. 

“Don’t worry, Ma’am. I get it. I’m a stowaway on your cruise ship of love. I can dig...” Tony trails off as the unmistakable sound of a car puttering over a path that can hardly count as a road begins to draw near. With shaking hands and quaking legs he stands up and pulls on the overalls and slips into the heinous purple shoes. 

He looks like a little boy in his daddy’s clothes as he bounds toward the path cutting through the woods, stopping in the dead center and holding out both of his thumbs. 

He closes them just in case the driver decides not to stop, and cracks them open when he hears the puttering, almost sad car slow to a crawl and jolt to a stop. 

He doesn’t know it, but almost four hours have passed. 

Through cracked lids Tony recognizes the Ford Mustang Cobra II and groans. It’s got an awkward mouth on the front, awkward sneaker stripes running it’s length, and drives like a pair of led shoes. 

When a Ginger Twiggy with hair down to her knees gets out of the monstrosity Tony is inclined to groan for entirely different reasons. 

Her legs don’t stop and she’s dressed in green and could possibly be under the definition of statuesque in the Oxford fucking English Language Dictionary. 

When she gets out of the car, gasps, and runs toward him Tony has to suppress the urge to run away. When she smiles with a grin that could make the stars ashamed and holds out her hand Tony is even more confused. 

“You’re Tony Caiazzo, right?” When he doesn’t move to take her hand she clasps his and shakes it vigorously. “I knew it! I’m Selkey Ainsley! I’m a huge fan of Loki Lauff and I love the song he wrote about you and you guys are so cute together and you’re both my favorite and...and...” 

Tony can’t really keep up. 

“But wait! What are you doing out here when Loki’s on his way to Philadelphia!? Oh no, you had a fight didn’t you! But Ben tells me you guys do that all the time! You can’t have broken it off you’re perfect for each other! Oh my god! I have to get you back to him before it’s too late! Get in my car! I’m on my way to their gig anyway! We’ll find out where he’s staying and we’ll have you back together and everything will be like it should be! Here! Come with me!” 

When Ginger Twiggy grabs his wrist and pulls him into her car Tony doesn’t do so much as mumble a word. He waves distractedly in the direction he thinks he left Lenore and Jimmy in as he's manhandled inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I guess, today's question for discussion is: how do you think this ends? We're at about the 3/4 mark right now, and I have an ending mostly written, so I know how it ends, but I'm curious what is going through yallz minds. 
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and while I appreciate it if you're strange, don't be a stranger.


	52. Chapter 52

When Tony wakes up in a car he doesn’t recognize, with a girl he doesn’t recognize, he is bored of being surprised by his seemingly preternatural ability to teleport in his sleep, and figures he’ll worry about it after a few more hours of sle--

“Oh no you don’t.” Says the girl and Tony groans. “I might never get an opportunity like this again, all alone with Loki’s boy. I’ve got some questions for you!” 

Tony hates questions. Unless he’s asking them. He manages a protesting groan. 

“Come on. The ride’s like fifteen hours and you’ve slept through seven of them. I’m practically driving you 500 miles for free. Pony up, Svadil-baby.” 

Ginger Twiggy doesn’t even sound mean about it, just genuinely curious on top of a natural snarky bent. 

Tony likes bent things and snarky things so he figures she can’t be all bad. 

“Fine, but for every question you ask I get to ask one.” 

“Five questions.” Shoots back Ginger Twiggy. 

“One question.” 

“Four questions.” 

“Two questions.” 

“Three. Any less and I’ll leave you on I-80. Your call.” 

“Well played.” Says Tony and Ginger Twiggy does a most ungraceful victory dance and nearly veers into the opposite lane. 

Tony kind of loves her a little bit. 

“So, how did you and Loki meet?” She asks and Tony tells her. He tells her about LA and the roof and the fur coat. And leaving Pepper behind. 

“You’re kind of a piece of shit for ditching her like that, but I can dig. I’d cut out of the library of Akashic record on a hat-drop for a piece of some Loki Lauff.” 

Tony has no idea what that means. He puts it on his list of things to ask Ginger Twiggy. 

“Is it true what they say about his cock?” 

“I don’t know what they about it, but I say you could club a baby seal to death with it.” 

Tony swears that Ginger Twiggy’s mouth starts to water. 

“That’s...oddly specific.” 

It’s obvious that she means mind-blowingly sexy. 

“Whose on top?” 

“Jesus woman, you don’t play coy.” 

“It’s 1973. Girls can talk about cock all they want now. It’s practically required.” Tony really does love her. “Sometimes I just say it because I like the feel of it in my mouth.” 

Her grin is wicked as she cranks the window down. 

“COCK!” She screams into the open air and Tony does the same. 

“COCK!” 

It rings across the hills and valleys and farmland, sweet as freedom. 

“COCK!” 

A cow moos back as they whiz by and they both cackle with laughter. 

“But, don’t think you’re off the hook, man. I want my answer. Who tops?” 

Tony sighs. “It’s kind of a subjective thing. I mean, who really has any control in those situa-” 

“He’s the pitcher. He’s major-leaguing the shit out of you.” 

Tony blushes for the first time in a long time and Ginger Twiggy’s delighted laughter feels like wind chimes. 

“What’s your name?” He asks. 

“I introduced myself to you this morning. You must have had one hell of a night! I’m Selkey Ainsley.” 

“Silky? Are you a stripper or something?” 

“No, not Silky. Selkey! Not like the fabric, like the mythological creature!” 

“There’s a mythological creature called a Silky?” 

“S-E-L-K-E-Y. They are like Celtic mermaids that are seals by day and ladies out for sweet manlove by night. Rather like myself.” 

Tony wants to know whats happened to girls named Ann and Sarah who like needlepointing or raising kids or something. They aren’t really his type, but he’s getting kind of tired of his life looking more like some sodomistic lovechild of Dali’s films and Tolkien’s books than anything that resembles actual reality. 

“My mom kind of insisted on the misspelling though. My daddy was a professor of world myth at Berkeley before he cut out to go live in our cabin. The switched letters drive him up a freakin’ wall. My turn!” 

Tony’s head is spinning. 

“So, how did you end up all the way out in the middle of nowhere?”

Tony takes a deep breath. He hates questions like this. “Well, Loki and I kind of had a fight I think, so I ran out. I ended up at this party where I think this guy spiked my drink as a part of this prank and when I woke up I was in the trunk of that other car you saw in the woods.” 

“Cut out that vague shit, man. Answer in full or I’m revoking your seatbelt privileges.” 

Tony grits his teeth. 

“Loki doesn’t like it when I...well, um, he doesn’t like it when I, ah, coke.” 

“Coke ain’t a verb, honey.” 

“If you think that, then you don’t know the white lady like I know her.” 

“So, Loki doesn’t approve of your drug problem?” 

“Don’t be a narc, Silky. I just know how to have a good time.” 

“Yeah. I can tell. What do you weigh? 90 pounds? Just sitting next to you is making me feel fat. I’m gonna have to go throw something up just to feel like I belong in this vehicle.” 

“I’m not that thin.” 

“You probably whistle when the wind blows.” 

“What does that even mean?” 

“It means that when you suck dick for rock instead of eating it does shit to you, man.” 

Tony turns ashen pale and Selkey looks abashed and then pitying. He’s wide eyed and shaking and she’s got a hand on his shoulder. 

“Oh Tony.” She sounds so much like Pepper in that moment that Tony wants to sob openly. 

“None of it makes sense!” Tony bellows and slams his fists into his thighs and it feels like bone hitting bone. Tony suddenly realizes how thin he is.

It is a harrowing realization. 

“When I first met Loki he was shoving pills and wine down my throat and practically bathing in a bloody vat of illegal substances and out of nowhere he just, he hardly even smokes like he used to!” 

Selkey smiles sadly. 

“What the hell changed in all that time, Selkey?” 

“Well, he was alone wasn’t he?” 

Tony looks at her blankly. 

“I mean, before you, he was all alone. Maybe you’ve made him feel better about things.” 

“Save the cheese for a burger, doll face.” 

“Save your denial for someone stupid enough to buy your raging bullshit parade, Svadil-baby.” 

Tony doesn’t know how he ever actually almost loved her. 

“Ben tells me shit all the time. Via the second hand smoke of your love I have become so in love with how cute you guys are together that it makes my heart all glowy.” 

“Ok, who the fuck is Ben. And why do you keep calling me Svadil-whatever?” 

“Only one question at a time! Ben’s one of the roadies. He’s my cousin. Queerer than a three dollar bill. He calls me for a weekly gab, keeps me updated on the situation.” 

“The situation?” 

“The saga of your doomed love!” 

“That’s just weird.” Tony grimaces. “And uncalled for.” 

“Hey man, love between gods and mortals is like lemon juice and paper cuts, but so fucking popcorn-worthy.” 

“Ha bloody ha.” 

“You’ve taken on his accent! It’s so cute!” 

“Next time you say ‘cute’ I’m gutting you.” 

“Grateful sonuvagun you are.” 

The silence is short but strangely heavy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to play a game with you guys called guess the song I am going to write the instrumental intro of a song in here and you have to guess what it is: 
> 
> bada-bada-da nernernernernerner bada-bada-da nerenernernernerner bada-bada-da nernernernernerner bada-bada-da 
> 
> Winner gets something. I don't know what it is, but I'll give it you. Oh baby, will I give it to you.


	53. Chapter 53

“Is it true that he’s some kind of powerful mage?” Asks Selkey as they pass into Pennsylvania and Tony nods vigorously before he can stop himself. 

Night has fallen. They’ve stopped for gas twice, and even stopped on the side of the road for a small picnic that largely consisted of crackers, cigs, and beer. 

“I’ve seen him do some shit that I’m not comfortable talking about, so don’t go there, because I won’t answer.” 

“You play it close to the chest don’t you? I feel like I’m trying to beat answers out of a rock half the time.” 

“Look, you don’t even understand how forthcoming I’m being, man. I haven’t thought about anything in like a month or something. I don’t even ask myself questions.” 

“Somebody fucked you up, man. Hard.” 

“Thanks Doc. I think it’s my turn.” 

The game has melted into conversation, but whoever claims a turn can have one. 

“So, you said your dad was a myths professor?” 

“Yup.” 

“He teach you anything?” 

Selkey smiles. “Everything he knows.” 

“So, I’m guessing since you keep calling Loki a god you could fill me in a little bit on this character he’s doing?” 

“Loki didn’t tell you, himself?” 

“We don’t really do personal stuff.” 

“So you just fuck and do drugs together?” Selkey looks as disappointed as Tony feels. 

“No!” He belts out before he can stop himself. “We also take care of each other.” 

Selkey lights up like a christmas tree and Tony wishes he hadn’t said anything at all. “But considering that we’re both stubborn self-loathing assholes the whole thing’s kind more like a literal house on fire than a metaphorical house on fire.” 

“THAT’S SO CU-” 

“No.” 

Selkey pouts. 

“But really, what can you tell me about Loki?” 

“Well, Loki is a norse sort of god, but not really.” 

“That’s so helpful.” 

“Look, the whole point is that Loki’s kind of the free radical of norse mythology. He just shows up, effects a reaction whichever way, and peaces out. He does good things. He does bad things. He has done everything. He manipulates, he lies, he steals, he hurts, he heals, he protects, he’s given birth, he’s been a man, he’s been a woman, and no one really knows what he is or where he came from or why. He does magic even though only women are supposed to. He’s also supposed to start ragnarok.” 

“Ragnar-what?” 

“The end of the universe.” 

“Why?” 

“Because he feels like it. Being adopted did things to him, man.” 

“What the fuck?” 

“I don’t know. He pulled a Catharine the Great once. The dude’s not right.” 

It takes Tony a second, but he always remembers shit like this. “Is this your way of telling me that he fucked a horse!?” 

Selkey nods and Tony shudders. 

“Speaking of which, the horse was named Svadilfari, hence the little nickname Ben and I have for you.” 

Tony hates everything. 

“Why would you pick the stage name of a horsefucker?” 

“Well Tony, I mean, otherwise it sounds pretty accurate to his personality. And his abilities.” 

“You don’t think he’s actually a norse god do you?” 

Selkey says nothing. 

“Come on. What would an immortal entity of unlimited power being doing slumming it on earth playing in a rock band?” 

“According to legend Loki once spent centuries as various viking’s wives, being faithful to them and bearing them many children, who he loved dearly.” 

“No way.” 

“Loki does whatever the fuck he feels like. And imagine how much fun being a rock god would be, man. It’s like pure license to do whatever the fuck you want.” 

“I guess it’s the closest he could come to being worshipped like the old days. Hope he doesn’t start demanding goats or firstborns or something.” 

Tony wonders how Selkey can so readily believe that the guy masquerading as Loki is an actual god, when he can’t and he’s seen the guy teleport a thousand miles in the blink of an eye. 

“No one ever worshipped Loki.” 

“I thought you said he was a god.” 

“Yeah, the god of chaos!” 

“Sounds more like the god of free will to me.” 

“Yeah, but in a fatalistic society how far do you think free will flies before someone cooks it and eats it? Loki was literally the guy who crashes the party and ruins it for everyone. I’m not even joking. Ever heard of the Lokasenna? Nobody’s going to sacrifice a goat or a firstborn to that guy. They bind that guy to a rock with the intestines of his children and beat the shit out of him.” 

“No fucking way.” 

“Yeah man, the vikings were nine kinds of fucked up. They had a verb that literally means ‘to rip something living in half’. They should have also had a verb for ‘Take it out on Loki’, because I swear half of norse mythology is just him being tortured.” 

“No wonder he starts Ragnarok. After an eternity of that I’d fuck shit up.” 

Selkey says nothing. 

“I could see why someone like Loki would identify with a character like that. Hell, I think everyone can relate to that guy.” 

“Yeah, he’s quite the character.” Says Selkey and Tony gets the feeling that there’s more to it, but he lets it go. 

He really wants a cigarette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE SONG WAS WHOLE LOTTA LOVE BY LED ZEPPELIN. I am v disappoint in you all. Maybe what I was asking was impossible. Oh well. Sometimes I do that. Thank you for playing if you tried. dodeledodeledoooooooo. 
> 
> I really want to give whatever that undisclosed thing was to somebody though.


	54. Chapter 54

“What about you?” 

“What about me?” 

They are two hours from Philadelphia and Tony really doesn’t want to have this conversation. 

“So, your name’s Tony. Tony who?” 

“Caiazzo.” Says Tony, because that somehow became a usual thing. 

“Where are you from?” 

“New York.” He says. He was born in California. 

“How old are you?” 

“Nineteen.” 

“Woah, that’s a little older than Loki usually likes them.” 

“Next person that calls him a pedo is getting kicked in the balls.” 

“I mean, he’s not that bad. I heard he bagged a fourteen year old prince in Italy a few months ago. It’s not like they’re seven or something.” 

Tony feels kind of sick anyway. 

“So, what were you doing before Loki?” 

“Driving.” Says Tony and Selkey looks at him, obviously displeased by the vagueness. 

“I’m just a drifter. I’ve been all over the southwest. I’m kind of handy so I get my bread fixing things wherever I go.” 

“And what about before that?” 

“What about it?” 

“Damn, an escaped government experiment wouldn’t be as cagey as you.” 

Tony crosses his arms and stares out the window. 

“I’m an only child.” 

“Tony-” 

“What the fuck do you want to know, Selkey!?” 

“Jesus, Tony I-” 

“My father is a piece of shit and I am the exact same piece of shit, only for the fact that I know I’m one and he just thinks he’s right. My mother’s straight out of the 1950’s and has all the agency of an eyelash curler! She’s kind of a piece of shit too. There. You fucking happy, Selkey?” 

There is a long silence. Selkey takes out two cigarettes, lights them both in her mouth, and hands Tony one. He takes it with a grunt. 

“You gotta let it go man.” She says and Tony snorts a profoundly caustic snort. 

“I’m not forgiving either of them for shit. I was only born because Maria figured a baby might stop her husband from bringing home stray pussy. Little did she know, the things pregnancy’d do to her body would only stop him from checking in every other week to flip her over and make sure she didn’t have bed sores, like he did when she was foxy.” 

“Damn.” 

“Yeah, real effective love spell I was. And didn’t Maria fucking know it.” 

A long unconversation punctuated by inhales and exhales of smoke pulls the atmosphere within the vehicle taut and poises it to snap. 

“Well, I don’t mean that you should forgive them for their sake. Fuck them. They sound like a real piece of work each. They’ve made a nineteen year old kid try and waste himself away to noth-” 

“Would you stop with the thin jokes-” 

“I’m not kidding Tony. You look like you’ve broken out of a death camp-” 

“Too soon.” Says Tony in all seriousness. He turns his eyes to the mirror jutting out of the side of the car, and hopes that it’s some kind of distortion. 

He looks like a skeleton with some skin and hair stretched over it. 

He doesn’t even hear his own gasp. 

Tony gets the feeling that he’s had this realization before and a bone-deep frustration that he can’t pull anything more concrete from within himself than a vague distaste. 

He feels like he’s living in an ever corkscrewing downward circle. 

“That’s why Loki wants you off the stuff. He probably just wants you to live.” 

All of this concern is chafing. 

“So if I’m not forgiving them for their sake then who the hell am I forgiving them for?” 

“For yours, moron. Look at yourself! While killing yourself would probably piss them off it would piss you off a hell of a lot more.” 

“I think it’s impossible to be pissed off when you don’t exist anymore. There’s no ‘you‘ to be pissed off in the first place.” 

“But what about your soul!?” Selkey looks genuinely horrified and Tony openly scoffs. 

“Is this was all part of some elaborate scheme to get me to accept your pamphlets and pony-up to your church I’m gonna have to take my hat off to you.” 

“Fuck you, Tony Caiazzo.” Selkey lights up another cigarette for herself without offering one to Tony. “You won’t let anybody help you.” 

“I’m sitting in a stranger’s car, smoking a stranger’s cigs, wearing another stranger’s overalls. I don’t think I’m exactly shy about accepting favors.” 

“That’s not what I mean and you know it.” 

Tony does know. 

“Well, what’s your story then, Silky?” 

It’s a cheap segway but she let’s him have it. Tony gets the feeling that she’s told him some of this before too. 

“My daddy’s Dick Ainsley. He was a professor at Berkeley, of world mythology, until one day he had some kind of revelation and dropped everything to bike across the country to ‘experience people’. One day he was down around the Haight hanging out with Allen Ginsberg-” 

“Who?” 

“God, can’t you read? Best and queerest poet since Shakespeare was cranking sonnets out about Willie Hughes!” 

Tony doesn’t know who Willie Hughes is either. 

“But anyway, my mother had been at a clothing protest with like fifty other naked hippies and when the cops came she got scared and dove into the bay. She crawled out naked on the beach and that was how she and my father met. It’s why my name’s Selkey. He saw her come naked out of the bay and he still calls her his Selkie, and says he’ll never tell her where he hid her seal skin.” 

“What?” 

“Sorry, sometimes I forget this stuff isn’t common knowledge. There’s only about twenty of us in a couple cabins for the summer and we’re all pretty like minded. Selkies are seals by day, but at night they sort of unzip their seal skins, hide them somewhere, and go gallivant on land. If you hide their seal skin they can’t ever return to the sea.” 

Tony knows that he’s expected to say that that’s romantic, but he’s kind of got this gross picture in his head of a human climbing out of a seal’s mouth covered in it’s blood and organs. 

Tony kind of hates himself for it. “Your family sounds amazing.” He tries not to sound bitter and Selkey pats him on the arm. 

“We go up to a Cabin in Montana every summer. My sisters, cousins, mom, dad, everybody! You should come visit!” 

“You’re just hoping I’ll bring Loki along.” 

Selkey smiles. “Maybe, but come anyway. With or without your trickster god.” 

Tony’s first instinct is to say no, and he wonders what the hell has happened to him to make him turn down a summer in the woods with six, probably gorgeous, girls. 

A forest of possibly genius ginger twiggies awaits him. 

He can’t imagine even setting foot in the place without Loki. 

God dammit. 

“But seriously. I’ll give you the number when we stop. You’re welcome anytime.” 

There is something about Selkey that stinks of welcome and home and warmth and Tony wants to burrow in her bones and stay there. 

“I’d love to.” He says and he means it wholeheartedly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> swiggity swapper that was a chapter 
> 
> I can't believe when I started writing this I wasn't old enough to drink and now I am. What the fuck is even happening? 
> 
> WE ARE ALMOST DONE THOUGH. I swear when this thing ends I am going to do a dance my last fic of this length was a Harry Potter fic and that thing is still half done on the bowels of ffnet on a long forgotten account from my younger years 
> 
> have a pleasant day my dears, and maybe in a month or so if any of you are in london and feel like meeting up with me as i leave 'murrica for the first time to gallivant across the UK we should do that.


	55. Chapter 55

They pull into a backlot off south street with a yawn on Selkie’s part and it hits Tony that Philadelphia is by far the weirdest city he’s ever been in. Rich and poor are almost speckled throughout the place by block. One minute you’re in front of a hotel with marble columns and literally down the street are two barefoot guys in clothes older than dirt drinking malt liquor out of paper bags. 

It’s 3 am. 

Tony’s too tired to know what to make out of any of it. 

“This is my Uncle Dave’s place. We’re gonna crash here for a few hours. Then we’ll go catch your trickster god. Sound solid?” 

Tony nods. It’s been about an hour since either of them have said anything. Selkey’s been driving since Montana and Tony hasn’t had a proper rest or meal in days. For the first time it really hits him that his body’s not ok with all of the shit he’s been putting it through, and that maybe he should relax a little bit. 

“My Uncle Dave’s a cool guy. He’s a census taker and he sells birdhouses. He’ll definitely have a little bit of room for you.” 

“Your whole family is awesome.” Tony mutters through half closed eyes and the next thing he knows he’s being yanked out of the car and toward the only purple door in a row home full of white ones. 

A fat man with a big red beard pulls him into the house with a motherly cluck and dumps him on a sofa. 

Tony hardly registers his eyes closing. 

The smell of cigarette smoke tantalizes him slowly from unconsciousness. It tickles his nose and kisses his eyelids until they open. 

Tony awakes with a cough and a gasp. 

Why the hell is Lee sitting across from him on a little wooden stool, smoking and staring at him like he can see through him? 

Until Tony realizes that Lee isn’t looking at anything at all he feels vastly uncomfortable. 

“Hey.” Tony says before patience can get the better of him. Something in Lee sparks to life and Tony suddenly feels even more uncomfortable. 

The man’s fake red hair and loud black eyebrows and dark brown eyes all scream at Tony’s sense of drama and tells him that something’s about to change. 

Tony’s kind of sick of this shit. 

“Why Caiazzo?” Asks Lee and that’s possibly the last question in the universe Tony expected because it takes him nearly half a minute to figure out that, that’s what his last name’s supposed to be. 

“Well you see, in modern society at least, when a man and a woman love each other very much they--” 

“I know who you are.” Says Lee without malice. “I recognized you. We met tennish years ago in London. I’ve known who you are since Loki first started with you.” 

Tony’s blood runs cold. 

“Don’t look like that, I’m not out to ruin your secret. In fact, from what I saw, I totally get why you’re all about out. Your father’s a dick, mate.” 

The laugh they share is short and a sardonic and bittersweet. 

Tony still has no idea what Lee’s referring to; or rather, the vague idea he’s got is more than enough. He’d rather keep it that way. 

“No, but really, it was at The Hough. You remember? I’d been serving at restaurants since I was thirteen and that was supposed to be my first shot at fine dining. You got me fired less than a week in.” 

Tony grits his teeth and and clenches his fist, all the while trying to make it look like he’s doing neither, in preparation for the inevitable kick in the stomach Lee is about to deliver. 

Whatever he saw probably involved Howard being drunk and either: a)womanizing or b) being annoyed by the fact that he had a son. 

Or maybe it was one from column A and one from column B. 

Tony doesn’t particularly want to relive any of the above. 

“There’s a cab outside,” Lee says instead and Tony’s body is still tensing. “Gonna take you back to Loki.” 

Tony deflates only to realize that this is also quite a horrifying prospect. 

While he has experienced Loki’s passion and his anger, Tony knows that he hasn’t even begun to understand the true depths of either of them. He’s been so focused on just getting back to Loki that he hasn’t thought about the terms on which they’d parted, and the ensuing days between, during which Loki may have snapped entirely. 

He swears he feels a cold wind blow through him. 

“Or, if you want out, it’ll take you there too. None of my business, really.” 

Tony gets up and the way he’s got to pull the too-large overalls up and around him to stop himself from drowning in them makes him feel like a victorian maiden gathering her skirts. He’s used to Peters and Jonce and their varied forms of concern and he doesn’t know what to do with Lee. 

“You don’t strike me as the type to miss out on a punishment, though.” It should have sounded like a joke but Tony gets the distinct impression that Lee doesn’t have a sense of humor. 

Lee just sees things like they are, and calls them that way without a thought, because nothing has any bearing on him, really. He’s like a walking zen parable of succinct short phrases and impenetrable detachment and Tony is infinitely envious. 

“What should I do, man?” 

Lee shrugs and Tony glares at him. 

“I’m just a bassist. I don’t weigh hearts to feathers and tell you which door to walk through, man.” 

“You’re really fucking helpful.” 

“You don’t want help. You’re not in a place to accept it. You might never be. I can’t give you what you don’t want, and I certainly don’t owe you spit, mate.” 

“What would you do if you were me?” 

Lee looks down and then up and then down again. He’s shy and he’s quiet and he’s got the most ridiculously fake cherry red hair that Tony has ever seen on a person but in that moment he looks like a sage, absorbing the wisdom of the universe and swirling clarity around inside himself before he ladles it out to the dazed and confused. 

“Oh, I only engage in carnal worship when the veil’s thin. Succubi are better than people, I find. I save my essence for them in the hopes that my seed will father many cambion. I’d like to fancy myself a father of many maybe, by now. I know I have at least one daughter somewhere in the aether. She visits me sometimes. She’s beautiful.” 

Lee is smiling serenely and Tony wants to ask, but he doesn’t even know what the fuck to ask exactly. 

“And the things succubi will do when you summon them! Mortals have no real appreciation in them for a man’s seed, you see. There is power and history and a physical tether to life itself and thousands of years of involution and evolution in your testicles. Succubi respect my seed. I wouldn’t suggest these rituals for you, however. It requires years of meditation to perfect the technique. I nearly died the last few times, might have to take a Samhain off. I’m running out of life I guess. That does happen though. Hungry bitches, the succubi. At least they want something that isn’t your money and your car, something sacred.” 

“And what does that have to do with anything!?” 

“I don’t know, I just kind of wanted you to know that I understand.” 

“What?” 

Lee shrugs with something that’s kind of like a smile and looks at the floor. He’s clearly done speaking. 

Tony really resents Lee as he puts on his shoes and walks out of the strange wonderland of a house, stuffed to bursting with avant-gard birdhouses. He vaguely registers Lee talking to somebody as he shuts the front door behind him and slams his way into the cab. 

“To The Harver?” Asks the cab driver and Tony feels like he’s sitting in class naked trying to take a test in High Franconian German without a pencil. Then again, he didn’t bust his balls getting all the way Philadelphia just to run screaming into the night. 

And even if Loki is cruel to him today, he will probably be kind tomorrow. 

And when Loki is kind Tony knows heaven unlike anything else. While his windpipe burns with sense memory and his brain whirls the unearthly possibilities that Loki provides, pictures of his skin gleaming in false and true light, shadow pooling between jutting bones like sensuality liquified bombard him from all angles. 

He can taste shadow and teeth and tongue and lips and blood and pain and soft skin. 

Tony fists the battered leather of the cab seats and digs in his nails. 

“Yeah.” He squeaks out and it sounds positively pitiful. The driver turns around and begins to drive them to wherever the fuck The Harver is. 

Tony doesn’t care. 

Tony doesn’t know if Lee planned on taking the cab back with him and, quite frankly, he doesn’t care about that either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the best and most important chapter of anything anyone has ever written, I am pretty sure. And Lee the Bassist is my favorite character. I kind of wish he could have his own TV show where he just goes around watching people and playing bass and doing sex magick. 
> 
> maybe I am the only one who would watch this..... hmmmmmm


	56. Chapter 56

The driver takes the time to yell the number 221 at him as he climbs out of the cab and Tony takes a good four minutes staring at the facade of the distinctly northern Harver before it occurs to him that ‘221’ must be Loki’s room. 

Tony’s palms are sweating buckets and he wipes them on his overalls before making his way inside. There’s a vaguely person-shaped thing at the vaguely front desk-shaped thing whose cries Tony ignores entirely as he steps into the elevator. He doesn’t have time to care about what The Harver looks like. 

With a sense of grim satisfaction Tony presses the button for floor two and swears for the brief minute of the elevator’s mechanical ascension he can feel every creak and whir of its movement. 

It comes to a stop and he gingerly steps onto the hideous carpet. He hardly breathes as he follows the signs on the equally hideous wallpaper to room 221. 

The door is just as white as all of the other doors, and Tony swears he goes blind when he swallows and knocks three times. 

He swears the blade of a guillotine is casting it‘s shadow on the back of his neck and when the door opens he closes his eyes in a painful wince. 

When someone brushes past him and continues on their way it is not what he expects. 

Tony cracks open his eyes and stands helplessly in the door way as seven people file out of Loki’s room, ringed in the bruises particular to a good fuck with hair and clothes in mad disarray. None of them pay him any mind. 

Several of them are limping and Tony feels something inside himself snap. He unconsciously swallows and feels like he can taste blood. He steps into the room and shuts the door behind him, there’s a small living room-type area littered with bottles and a few pieces of clothing. Tony is so preoccupied with trying not to see any of it that he cleanly slices the bottom of his left foot on a piece of glass. 

The shock of pain is interrupted by the sound of a match being stuck and the sweet smell of cigarette smoke. 

Tony follows it, limping and trailing a thin string of blood behind him, to another white door. He opens it softly and without a second’s hesitation. 

Loki’s eyes widen as his cheeks hollow, siphoning tobacco and chemical alike before they can escape as smoke. It catches in his throat and even as he leaps out of the bed, crushing Tony to him, he coughs and coughs and coughs. 

Tony can’t breathe and his foot is throbbing. Loki smells like a whore house and it makes him angrier than he can express. Before he can think he’s pushed him away and Loki stumbles, looking confused and like his heart has been wrenched out of his chest for all of a second, before he wrests control of himself and settles on a snarl. 

“What is the meaning of this!?” 

Tony doesn’t want to say that the mere idea of anyone touching Loki but him makes him want to fly into a murderous rage, and the fact that while he was locked in the trunk of a car unconscious, the butt of the worst joke ever, Loki was probably having three chicks suck his dick, makes him want to fly into a murderous rage at the speed of light. 

“I hate you!” He says instead, and it sounds so petulant and insincere that he starts to flush. 

“Then what did you just hitch hike 800 miles for?” Loki sounds to be on the verge of laughing and Tony hates him for it. He hates all of this. He stalks to the other edge of the room, to be as far away from Loki as possible, and when his foot bangs against the dresser he howls and flips the entire fucking thing over. 

The satisfying crash of it is not enough and Tony kicks and punches it, taking the room down with him, as his injured foot anoints the petty wreckage with human blood. 

Loki watches sprawled in a chair in the corner, limbs akimbo and carelessly outstretched in a kimono he never bothered to tie. His cock, impressive even when flaccid, rests against his thigh. He appears to smoke thoughtfully as he watches Tony pull the room down around them. 

Tony catches flashes of his gaunt and frenzied face in a mirror hanging on the wall, and savagely rips the telephone out of the wall and throws it at the mirror. 

It cracks and falls to the floor. 

When Tony’s finished he falls to his knees, panting and hyperventilating on a bed without sheets, a white mattress freckled with blood, and pillows leaking their fluffy cotton insides. 

When Loki slides himself behind Tony and wraps his arms around him the boy collapses against him without a thought. Loki holds him there, supporting him with an arm draped in cool silk. Tony can’t help but smell their skin mingled, and the combination is noxiously foul. 

“Ugh.” He says eloquently and Loki snorts. “We’re having a bath.” 

Loki makes no move to get out of the bed or off of Tony, so he gets up first and stands at the foot of the bed. Tony can’t help that the loss of contact feels like a physical withdrawal. 

He pulls Loki toward the adjacent bathroom by the hand. 

Loki’s kimono falls away from him as he walks and Tony watches as he settles himself into the tub with feline grace. 

Tony wrestles himself out of somebody else’s overalls, nearly falling over twice. 

The second time is only because Loki is watching him with such a look of divine lust and exasperation and unmatched fondness that it makes him stumble. Tony wants to make some kind of a comment, but he hasn’t got one. 

Loki’s watching him expectantly, waiting for him to join him in the tub, but Tony has no desire to; not yet. 

He runs the water at a frigid temperature and as it fills the tub, Loki sighs. Tony grabs a towel and one of the obnoxiously small prepackaged hotel soaps. 

“Darling, wha--” 

Tony silences Loki with a look and he watches as the kid before him, barely a man, soaps up the rag and gingerly pulls one of his feet out of the water, rubbing and scrubbing it clean. 

Loki delights in his touch and cranes his neck over the rim of the tub, humming as Tony methodically moves from toes, to arch, to ankle, to calf with strokes that lend themselves a vague sensuality, despite their methodical and almost ceremonial efficiency. 

Loki knows that Tony is scrubbing him clean. He can read the tension in his brow and shaking hands. Discomfort radiates off of him in waves. Whatever he’s thinking about is visibly eating him alive. 

Loki groans as Tony takes to a particularly vicious knot in his other foot, coaxing it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to film today but got artblocked by a torrential downpour so I bring you this chapter. Hooorrraaayyyyy. It's almost over kids. Only like fifty pages left in pages. 
> 
> ALSO HANNIBAL TONIGHT. AAAASDSDLFKADSJFASDJFA;SDLKF;ASDLKFJAS;LDKFJA;SLDFKJAS;LDF 
> 
> I guess my question for you is, how do you want this to end?


	57. Chapter 57

Tony stops at Loki’s hair. He cups some of the bathwater in one of his hands and wets the thick strands with it, watching as it drips on his forehead and eyelids. 

“Loki.” He whispers at last and his voice sounds a thousand years old. Loki turns his eyes to him without moving an inch, obviously questioning. 

Tony swallows. “After this it’s done.” He says and Loki’s entire body pulls taut, poised for violence. Tony puts a calming hand on his shoulder. “I mean that, after this, it’s just us. The others. They’re done.” 

Loki turns around onto his stomach in the tub, sloshing frigid water onto the floor and staring up at Tony with probing eyes, blown nearly black. 

“Are you staking a claim?” It’s obvious that he was trying for levity, but it falls flat and dark and cracked and desperate. 

It looks like Loki wants what Tony wants and how can that be possible and Tony feels like he’s burning. 

“I am.” He says and when Loki smiles like he’s won the lottery entire Tony, for the first time in his life, feels like he knows what he should say and what he should do and where he should be and these things and him don’t exist on two entirely different wavelengths destined never to meet. 

“That’s why I hitch hiked 800 miles.” He says and when Loki pulls him into the tub and rolls him underneath him Tony shivers and gasps and clings to him. 

Loki kisses him with the piercing passion and the relentless burn of sole possession. He bites and claws and kisses until Tony is nearly swept away in sensation. 

“Then you are not the only one.” Says Loki and when Tony finds his ass flush with Loki’s semi-hard cock it occurs to him between twitches of his needy hole that this must be what being proposed to feels like. 

Something imperfect and beautiful and timeless seems to stretch between them as Loki reads the signs of his body, and begins to fill him with finger after finger, pulling him apart in preparation to accept that which every fiber of him insatiably craves. 

Loki kisses him as he loosens around his fingers, pulling softly at each of his nipples and ghosting his fingers everywhere they can reach, as if he can not decide where to touch. 

Tony clings to him as he removes his fingers at last and pulls on his own cock, lining up and preparing to slide inside him. 

Tony gasps at the initial breach of it. What follows is so slow that Tony would beg his lover for faster, for harder, for anything at all, if he didn’t feel like all it would take was a single word to shatter what exists between them, a fragile new sentient understanding and mutual possession birthed in crystalline fault lines, cracks in the energy spiraling between their bodies, needing only a single stray thought to shatter into a thousand pieces. 

Loki pushes inside him, completely filling him, and Tony’s breath catches. He takes a second to marvel at the thing inside him, pulsing and rigid and smooth. He feels the softness of the balls nestled against his hole and allows Loki to hold him in the water, ghosting his fingertips along his skin. 

They lay curled together and locked together, hardly moving and hardly breathing. Loki kisses him so softly that, was Tony not lost to hyperawareness, his skin singing wherever and whenever they touch, he might have missed it entirely. 

“Loki,” He whispers eventually and he lets out a long sweet whine as his lover starts to move. 

There is nothing but soft sighs, the slick uninhibited caresses of slapping skin, and the sloshing of water as they fuck and kiss and nip and touch and sigh. By the end of it Tony’s heart is near bursting and his cock is so hard that he can hardly bring himself to touch it. 

He’s almost forgotten that it was there and forgotten that this is supposed to be about cumming and forgotten that only bitches cry during sex and forgotten that-- 

“Together.” Says Loki and when Tony takes himself in hand and simultaneously feels Loki pulse and start to spill inside him he can’t help the sob of relief which escapes him. 

His orgasm is blinding and sweet and infinite and when Loki digs his teeth into his shoulder hard enough to draw blood he hardly feels it beyond it being another shock to his blissed-out, overwrought system. 

They cling to each other in the filthy water.

Tony shivers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beep beep boo doo bop boop. 
> 
> I like all of the debate going on over Loki's and Tony's true motivations and feelings. Y'all are stars. But we should all be polite to one another unless your animosity is resolved and you become friends and then I can ship you and then name the ship. Isn't that right, Evilbirds? 
> 
> Anyway, yeah and stuff. We alllllll shine ooo-ooo-on. Like the moon. And the stars. And the suuuunn.


	58. Chapter 58

Tony can feel the very second that blissful space they had inhabited together turns to ash and something is worrying at Loki again. He’s sitting naked on the sheetless bed, in their wrecked hotel room, watching Loki comb through his hair, when it occurs to him that he’s basking in the afterglow alone, and that is indescribably wrong. 

Tony leans over to Loki and winds himself into his lap, nestling his head in his neck and matching his breaths so they fall in-step with the rise and fall of Loki’s chest. 

He presses his nose against his adams apple, as if prodding, and kisses the underside of his jaw gingerly. 

Loki sighs. 

He understands. 

“I fear that these...confessions may prove untimely.” 

Tony fights the urge to have a complete nervous breakdown. After all, he’s already had one today. Their room is barely hanging by a thread. Another would just be pure self-indulgence. 

“Loki Lauff and The Age of Frost, it all ends in five days.” 

“You mean the tour, or--” 

“All of it.” 

Tony recalls Loki on stage, barefoot and unadorned, hair pulled back, singing simply with a guitar in his hand, and manages to tamp down his smile. There is a beauty in the ending of things, even things as bombastic and marvelous as the Age of Frost. And it certainly does feel like the ending of an age. 

“We will not play another show, after New York City.” 

And Loki is the one ending that age in the pursuit possibly of a truer sound, or maybe something else entirely, but whatever it is it will be entirely new and Tony is enthralled at the prospect of change. When one thing ends another begins, and he feels alight with the inherent possibilities of it all. 

Why Loki sounds like he’s reading his own eulogy is beyond him. 

“Is your actual name really long and embarrassing or something?” He asks and Loki’s look of complete confusion is priceless. “Well, I mean, hear me out here, it wouldn’t make sense for me to keep calling you your stage name forever if you’ve killed the character.” 

Loki’s jaw appears to have unhinged. 

“I mean that would just be bloody ridiculous.” 

Loki’s jaw has definitely unhinged, but his eyes are smiling. 

“Darling, if you keep that up, your face’ll get stuck like that.” 

Loki makes no move to change his expression so Tony inserts a hand beneath his hanging jaw and gingerly moves it back into place. 

“It would be an awful waste of face.” He says and Loki looks both mystified and infinitely pleased. 

“You absolute nutter.” He says it with weightless breath of a prayer and Tony grins. 

“That’s high praise coming from the trickster god, himself.” 

Loki’s look is disproportionately searching for Tony’s joking tone. When he places a hand on his chest, Tony is suddenly reminded of the cold from before and the questions it raised. 

Most of these questions came from the fact that it seemed to have explained things to Loki that Tony had no way of understanding 

“Is it still cold?” He asks and Loki’s eyes narrow. 

“Does the phrase ‘Merchant of Death’ mean anything to you?” 

Now it is Tony’s turn to be completely thrown off kilter. 

“Is he like a wrestler or something?” 

Loki’s eyes narrow again. “It’s still cold.” 

Before Tony can even begin to construe questions Loki is changing the subject. 

“There’s a show tonight. I don’t think you should go, Tony.” 

Tony’s curiosity is immediately smothered by indignation. 

“Tony, the last show you attended ended with you in the trunk of a car in the middle of the woods 800 miles--” 

“But--” 

“And I don’t think I even want to know what happened in the middle--” 

“That is fucking rid--” 

“You have no self-control--” 

“IN THE WHOLE OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE THERE WILL ONLY BE TWO MORE OF THESE AND YOU ARE ASKING ME TO SIT THEM OUT--” 

“I don’t want you in situations where you’ll be tempted--” 

“I’m not an idiot, Loki!” 

Loki looks to be fighting the urge to throttle him. Holding himself back requires all of the energy he’d use for things like scoffing and speech and eye-rolling. 

“I am actually a fucking technological genius--” 

“You fixed a fucking guitar, Anothony! You didn’t create the atomic bomb!” 

But Tony knows who did help create the atomic bomb and before he can think he’s flying across the bed at Loki intent on violence screaming: 

“Don’t you fucking compare me to him!” 

His scream turns into a yelp as he’s suddenly flung against the far wall by Loki’s impossible strength. 

He crumples to the floor, barely managing to stagger upwards before falling to his knees, feeling a whole new host of bruises form and when something wet drips out of his mouth and Tony finds red blood wiped on the back of his hand he’s back on Loki, pinning him down, hands fisted in his hair. 

“What the fuck are you!?” Cries Tony as he pulls and yanks and kicks and pulls and the next thing he knows he’s being held beneath Loki and the sheer weight of him is so immense that Tony feels like he’s being pressed down with slabs of rock like an accused witch, and he thinks his ribcage might just crack. 

“Get off! Get off! getoffgetoff get...” Tony chants into a low, weak wheeze. 

“A monster.” Whispers Loki and it’s low and sensual and disturbing and the frigid air he’s pumping into Tony’s lungs feels like the kiss of death. 

Tony’s slowly being crushed to a pulp and his body is burning between hot and cold and when he realizes that it’s him that hard and leaking against Loki he wants to sob, but he lashes out instead. 

All this time he thought that the pounding in his head was just the pain and shock of his own heart as it fights to keep oxygen and blood circulating, despite constant battering. 

There’s someone pounding on the door. 

“Loki...” Tony chokes out as he peers into Loki’s murderously gleaming eyes, trying to find him. 

“Loki...” He tries again, desperately, hands caressing uncoordinatedly as if he can catch pieces of Loki’s humanity in his hands and coax them forth. His world is narrowing and blackening and he tries yet again. He vaguely registers that his fingertips are tinged blue. 

“The door!” He gasps and the next thing Tony knows Loki’s gone and he can breathe again. Tony crawls off the bed, trying to get to the bathroom. 

He manages to get halfway there, coughing and wheezing on the carpet as he holds his ribs and shakes. He curls in on himself when the door opens. 

“Jesus bloody christ!” 

Tony winces. Jonce is not what he needs right now. 

“Mother of fuck!” 

Peters is even less of what he needs right now. 

“No wonder there was a fucking noise complaint! You’ve fucking killed him!” 

When Peters kneels down and touches him his hand burns like a brand and Tony cries out. He vaguely registers that his teeth are chattering. 

“Is he fucking hypothermic?” Jonce sounds horrified. 

“His lips and hands and feet are turning blue! We’ve got to get him into a warm--” 

Peters is interrupted when they touch Tony, with the intention of maneuvering him, and the touch of their skin makes him flop away from them. 

When Loki bends down and touches him it feels soothing and Tony wants to back away, but after hours of pain, his physical needs outweigh his mental processes. 

“Get out.” Demands Loki as he gingerly runs his fingers along the planes of Tony’s face and neck and chest. “You’ll only hurt him.” 

“It is hot enough to cook a fucking egg on the sidewalk outside! It’s fucking August! What the fuck did you do to him?” 

“Nothing that I will hesitate to do to you if you continue to infringe upon our personal space.” 

“Fuck you! I’m not leaving him alone with you, Loki! Just because he’s a stupid kid who thinks he’s invincible doesn’t mean he deserves to die for it!” 

“I quite agree with you.” Says Loki. Jonce and Peters watch on in terrified awe as Loki leans down, whispers something into Tony’s ear as he scratches trenches in his skin. Where blood wells beneath his skin color flushes, and Tony’s body arcs off of the floor as he’s suddenly full of life and color. His cock hardens of its own accord and Jonce and Peters cough and turn away. 

“He’ll live.” Says Loki simply. “Now get the fuck out.” 

Jonce runs chanting fuck me fuck me fuck me. 

“You better fucking watch it Loki.” Growls Peters and Loki picks Tony up from the floor. He can hear them but barely see a thing. He’s exhausted and alight and focused yet impossibly scattered across indefinable space. 

“Why do you care so much for this boy?” 

“You wouldn’t understand. I see a fucked up kid coming from a fucked up place bent on killing himself before his life’s even fucking started and I want to take the loaded gun out of his hand!” Jonce is breathing heavily and his face is red and his hands are balled into fists. “You don’t get it, because you’re the fucking gun, Loki.” 

“What do you know about Tony Caiazzo?” Loki snarls mockingly and Peters‘ laugh is sharp and humorless. He’s cackling bitterly even as he walks out of the wrecked hotel room and Loki hates feeling like other people know things that he doesn’t. 

He looks down at the half unconscious body in his arms and grimaces. 

Is Tony pouring his heart out to Peters in stollen moments? Taking time which should belong to him, to them, to tell him secret things that he won’t tell him? 

Loki covets these secrets, but not after his usual manner. He wants Tony to give them freely, and Tony can see Loki’s eyes like beacons of light in disjointed swirling torrents of sound and vision, piercing him and searching for answers. 

Loki settles him gently on the bed and tries to step away, but with single-mindedness of a seemingly involuntary reflex Tony’s got a hand latched around his wrist, unyielding as a manacle. 

“What are you?” Loki asks as Tony’s eyes close of their own accord.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo so I'm heading to London on Wednesday so this might be my last update for a while. But I love you all and I promise I won't leave this hanging. Imma be there for six weeks and maybe like Copenhagen or something for a bit. If you want to keep track of my life and make sure I'm still alive so I can finish this, you can check my vitals at dancy-magic-dancy on the tumblah. 
> 
> Peace out home skillets.


	59. Chapter 59

Tony wakes up alone and stiff and uncomfortable on the sheetless hotel bed, in the middle of the wrecked room, and something about the whole thing makes him want to cry. 

The he realizes that whatever time it is, it’s entirely possible that Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost have already begun to play. 

There used to be a working clock on the wall, but Tony tore it down. As he looks at it’s broken face, nestled in the crack between a nightstand he upturned and the wall he clenches his fists. The only light in the room glows softly from the cracked open bathroom door, so Tony gathers that it’s night. 

His urge to kick something is knocked off it’s ass by how heavy and weak and pained his body feels. 

How many times does he have to try to kill you? 

Something inside Tony asks and he grumbles at it to fuck off as he pads toward the bathroom. 

As he pisses, dick in hand and the other holding him up against the wall, it occurs to Tony that his left foot no longer hurts, and when he holds it up just high enough to see the unblemished skin underneath, he slams his foot down so hard the vibrations radiate up his leg and make it shake. 

Tony wonders whether or not Loki healed that one thing on purpose, just so he couldn’t hate him entirely, just so some pieces of his kinder nature would shine through even his most violent acts. Or maybe Loki does nothing on purpose, and he’s just a purely reactionary presence thriving solely on the highs and lows of his own whirlwind of mania. 

Tony doesn’t particularly care either way. 

If he looks like a beaten housewife, swollen and split and grim and entrapped, in the mirror when he washes his hands, then he just happens to. 

Shit happens. 

Especially when you ask for it. 

And Tony knows that by clinging to Loki like a leaf clinging to a dying tree in the middle of a flaming hailstorm of biblical proportions, he’s practically signing and sealing his own invitation to new worlds of exquisite pain. 

And also of new harrowing depths and incredible heights of feeling. 

He can leave if he wants to, but leaving only to drag on aimlessly until he can drink himself to sleep seems like a colorless alternative to a world where such passion and warmth and danger are imminently possible, available beneath a thin skin which exists solely to be broken and ooze with the wine of life. 

Tony finds a bright orange dress in the closet and puts it on. He hasn’t got shoes, but the dress is so long that it hides that fact, and he doesn’t think anyone will notice. They’ll be too distracted by how his purple face contrasts with the orange dress. He puts on a pair of white rimmed circular sunglasses which swallow his face, and manage to hide almost everything aside from the fact that his bottom lip is split nearly in half. 

He carefully navigates through the room, and makes his way to the door. 

It won’t budge. 

Tony puts all his weight on it. 

Nothing. 

He tries forcing, kicking, scratching, punching, and even biting at the door. 

Nada. 

He yanks at the doorknob in such a way that it would have broken in any other instance. 

The door remains mockingly unperturbed. 

He tries launching himself off of the bed at the door, like a crazy kung fu master, and only ends up tripping on the overlong dress, breaking the sunglasses in half, and landing ass first in glass. 

He ends up pulling a four inch long shard of glass out of his butt cheek and ruining the dress by bleeding on it. 

Tony wonders when he’ll run out of blood. 

Tony has managed to get the window halfway open and is contemplating lowering himself down a la bed sheet when he hears a key turn in the lock, and the front door opens. 

Loki is carrying two bags, one with boxes and one with bottles of wine in it, and while he literally is walking on broken glass, he looks like he’s walking on eggshells. 

“Err, um, hello darling.” He says and he looks so sheepish that Tony can’t help but laugh, even though it makes his whole body twinge uncomfortably. 

Loki looks moderately affronted and mostly shame-faced. When Tony limps over to him, and pulls him down into a kiss which causes his split lip to smart, the man is so shocked that he hardly responds. 

“What time is it?” Asks Tony, and his cheerfulness seems to put Loki on edge. 

“Just past two,” Loki says quietly. “I brought you something.” He drops the bags awkwardly on the bed and Tony leaps onto the bed behind them. He immediately goes for the topmost box and forces it open. When he sees two cheeseburgers and a mountain of fries he lights up like a christmas tree on fire. 

“Post beating cheeseburger? Baby, you shouldn’t have!” 

Loki winces as Tony attempts to cram half of the burger in his mouth. 

“About that,” Loki begins and Tony groans orgasmically around his mouthful of luxuriant meaty cheese. “It got a bit out of hand.” 

“Would you like a gold metal?” 

“A what?” 

“A gold medal. For winning the understatement olympics.” 

Loki says nothing. 

“Though, England doesn’t really need your help, but I doubt your actually from there anyway. So, I don’t know. On the behalf of your realm? Your home planet? Your subterranean coven of frosty gandalfs-” 

“How close do I have to come to killing you before your fragility loses it’s humor, Anthony?” Loki’s face is grim and his eyes are wide and sad and Tony doesn’t like it. 

“If you actually kill me I doubt I’ll be laughing, though--” Tony stops to take another bite of his cheeseburger and Loki balks. “--that will have more to do with my lack of general body functions that anything I can consciously control. I guarantee you my ghost will be cackling, though.” 

Loki flashes between anger and despair so quickly that Tony feels like he’s got whiplash on top of everything else. 

“Why don’t you value your life?” 

“Maybe for the same reasons you don’t?” 

Loki watches in desperate silence, looking to be almost near tears as Tony consumes an entire burger and falls back in apparent pain. 

“Oh god.” Tony moans. “I think I’ve forgotten how to eat.” 

Loki says nothing. He watches his hands. 

“Come on, what’s an accidental freeze-drying between friends?” 

Loki won’t even look at him. 

“And I don’t think we’re just friends anymore.” 

Tony takes Loki by the hand and pulls him down so he lays beside him, stiffly. Between them they manage to spread french fries all over the bed and floor. Tony takes Loki’s hand and cradles it against his swollen, aching face. 

“I don’t think we ever were just friends, really.” Says Tony and Loki closes his eyes and breathes with impossible weight. His black eyelashes are coated in mascara and seem to fan out for miles. 

“May I heal you?” He asks softly and when Tony nods, a soothing cool winds it’s way through his veins, stretching and knitting his skin back together and bathing him in crackling life energy. 

Tony hums with it and when it’s through, Loki holds him and they crackle together, as one broken body faintly sparking with impossible and irrepressible energy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO UPDATING FROM LONDON YEEEAAAAHHHHHHH BOIIIIIIIIIIIII 
> 
> but I fucking love this place dude. It's everything I've ever wanted. I been sunbathing on southbank everyday and hitting up jazz and blues bars every night. I have been laid up with this horrid blister I got at Trayvon Martin protest outside the us embassy though. :( 
> 
> IT'S THE SIZE OF A 50 P COIN AND IT MAKES ME WANT TO CHOP MY FOOT OFF. 
> 
> I don't know if I'll get the chance to update again while I'm here, but maybe? Thank you for keeping up with this fic if you're still around! After over a fucking year its finally almost done! HOORAY! 
> 
> <3, Izzy


	60. Chapter 60

Loki had not wanted Tony to come tonight. 

But there is nothing short of a biblical flood or death that could have stopped him from seeing the final performance of Loki Lauff and the Age of Frost. 

This is what brought him and the impossible, beautiful man together, though it will not be what ends them. 

Mizandrine Walber plays her little acoustic set, and it registers like a buzzing fly for Tony, who stands on the edge of what Loki had described to him as being, ‘Nothing short of ragnarok’. 

He is tight with anticipation, awaiting revelation, and he knows that Loki will deliver and then some. 

First and foremost, the man is a showman. He’s come to blow minds and take names, and Tony can’t even imagine what he has planned. 

When the band appears in a wash of light and smoke and Loki steps forward, dressed like a priest in garb painted like the night sky, in towering heels, gold horns, and eyebrows drawn so they nearly arch his hairline, Tony is beyond enthralled. 

Loki steps forward, microphone that looks more like a small flashlight in his hand. 

“Hello Darling.” He says to the crowd and they whir and titter exultantly. “Now, you’ve probably heard the rumors, that the Age of Frost is coming to an end.” There is a collective gasp and deafening silence and Loki seems to take a moment to bathe in it. 

“The rumors are true, This is our last show, but, before you can riot in the streets, I want each and every last one of you to know that you have the unique privilege and honor of experiencing what no other living being will get the chance to experience:” 

“Ragnarok.” Whispers Tony. 

“RAGNAROK!” Loki howls. 

“While the city that never sleeps buzzes on indifferent to all human suffering around you! In here we will have--” 

He throws his hands out at the audience and they scream Ragnarok as one mouth with a single voice. 

“While they exist on in their petty miseries and petty joys we will have lightning and ice and fire! We will have...” 

“RAGNAROK!” 

“We will lay waste to the old world and rise from glorious ash reborn in the wake of--” 

“RAGNAROK!” 

“WE SHALL CAST OFF OUR CHAINS AND WHAT IS LEFT OF US SHALL BE MADE FREE!” 

“RAGNORAK!” 

And when the drums begin like pounding thunder and Loki howls like he’s about to dive into the fray of the war which will end all things Tony feels his blood sing. 

Cloaked in stars Loki bellows into a microphone and the crows rises and falls at his direction, before becoming lost in the chaos, touching and tasting and feeling and soaring. 

Tony is a lone pillar of stillness in a sea of frenzied movement, frozen in supplication to this new god. 

A god of sound and vision.


	61. Chapter 61

The Age of Frost ends in the only way it could reasonably end. 

In fire. 

In the midst of a frenzied instrumental breakdown during which Loki struts and bellows, tearing at his hair and his clothes, and smearing his makeup down his face, lays the smoldering conclusion of their tour. 

He’s finished twisting himself into knots, playing in shadow like a child elbow deep in paint, when he pulls a crystal bottle out of the air and takes a swig. The next thing anyone knows he’s breathing fire. 

The crowd goes wild, amazed, and ever insatiable for more. 

First the curtains catch. 

It starts to spread. 

Loki tilts his head back, breathing an arch of fire and standing in it’s midst like an art nouveau demon, ringed in a mosaic of light and heat, proud and beautiful as the very devil. 

And then everyone is screaming and running and Tony stands his ground, feels the hot air move with the crowd as they disperse. His eyes are on Loki. He doesn’t see Jonce and Lee and Peters run for their lives. 

Loki stands above them all, arms outstretched as the building begins to burn. Tony walks toward him, stepping through flame, entranced. 

When it touches his skin it does not burn and he briefly wonders what Loki has done to him as stands below Loki’s feet and stares up into his eyes, greener than envy, and watches the flames reflect there. 

Loki takes him by the hands and pulls him up and Tony let’s himself go, licked by the heat as Loki lifts him and takes him in his arms. 

“It is done.” Says Loki with a grin and Tony smiles. 

“I can see that.” 

There is fire and the wailing of sirens and smoke as Loki takes Tony’s face in his hands and drinks deeply of him, cold on cold turning to brilliant heat as the venue around them burns to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My time in London is coming to an end, so updates will be more regular. I hope to post 1-2 chapters a week until this thing concludes, since we are so very close to the end. FINALLY. If you've stuck with me this long, I want to thank you. Seriously. This thing has been going over a year. Over the course of this fic I've had eleven hair styles, been to three countries, left and rejoined a band, my mom got sick, and like I'm almost done school now. Like holy shit I can't even imagine what's changed for all of you. Seriously. And like this little story is where all of our little parallel universes have intersected and I think that's cool, even if we've never talked at all.


	62. Chapter 62

Tony pulls away when he feels hair tickling his lips. 

There is a city beneath them and a sky full of stars above and Loki is suddenly a, rakish man with thick blonde curls and a faintly red goatee, dressed in black denim and blacker leather. His eye brows are back and he is so heart-stoppingly attractive that Tony can’t breathe. There is absolutely nothing feminine at all about this man. The sharpness of his features and his litheness cannot betray that. He even smells like a man, something heady and strong and Tony wonders if Loki is just going to keep to make him continuously gayer until he can’t even remember what the word heterosexuality means. 

His next thought involves seeing if Loki could cast some kind of invisibility spell, so he can suck him off. Immediately. 

How is he not supposed to be gay for a man with a goatee like that who smells like this. 

“You knew that we couldn’t stay.” Says Loki with a smug grin and Tony’s next look around reveals something absolutely incredible to him. 

They are on top of the Eiffel Fucking Tower. 

“So you’ve taken us to Paris?” 

“Mhmmm.” Says Loki as if it’s all perfectly simple and when Tony takes his hand and leads him over to the side he gasps. 

“Why?” 

“Why not?” 

Tony leans against him and Loki kisses the top of his head. 

“Good food, good wine, good sarcasm, good people.” Says Loki and Tony nods. 

“Have you ever been here before?” Asks Loki and Tony feels the no beginning to jump off of his tongue and into the air before he saves it from the ungodly splatter, another lie descending eagerly earthward. 

“Yes.” He says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM NOW BACK IN L'AMERICA AND WE ARE IN THE HOME STRETCH FOLKS. There are only a handful of chapters left of this monster. Daaaaaaaaamn.


	63. Chapter 63

They live together in Paris for a little over two weeks, not doing much of anything at all. 

As free people, without obligation, they shift from hotel to hotel. The eat, they sleep, they make love, they drink, they explore, they smoke, and they fuck. 

They are always together. Often, they even take their baths together. 

Loki has a seemingly endless supply of money and Tony does not question it. 

He could live the rest of his life in this heaven, wrapped in the city and in Loki, never asking another question. 

At the end of week two Loki finds them an apartment, a small place high above the city, which they eagerly christen every surface of as theirs. 

Tony has never truly felt at home before. 

August has long since turned to September, and in the city of love leaves are beginning to redden. 

Loki has begun to teach Tony French. Sometimes he sings to him. 

Tony on occasion feels a nagging itch for cocaine. It is not so much a physical need as an emotional desire. 

Tony misses flying. 

Whenever he does he tells Loki, and Loki is sure to distract him. 

They have grown silent and loud and inward, entwining within each other in every way as they withdraw from the world. 

“Donnes-le-moi.” Says Tony one day, as they sit in a cafe, bickering half in French (Loki) and half in English (Tony) over nothing at all, and trying not to smile at one another. When Tony finally comes out with some French of his own accord Loki has to fight not to clap his hands together in glee. 

It would figure that Tony’s first voluntary sentence in French is ‘Give me it’. And a command, no less. 

“Ton cigarette.” Says Tony and with every word his french inflection grows stronger. “Je le veux. Donnes-le-moi.” 

Loki laughs a dark little laugh. “Je ne suis pas surpris que vos premiers mots en français sont: I want it. Give it to me.” 

“Woah there, Pierre, give the wanker a minute to catch up. Outside of bedroom French I’m kind of lost.” 

“I’ve noticed.” Says Loki with a beatific smile as he passes Tony his cigarette and unfolds the newspaper in his lap. He peruses it as Tony sips his coffee and drags his cig with the utmost calm. 

“I was trying to save it for the right moment, but my timing is merde.” 

“I’m feeling magnanimous today,” says Loki as he refolds the newspaper and recrosses his legs in the opposite direction. “If you can make me forget about your little slip, I’m willing to indulge you in a little time travel.” 

“That is an awfully flowery way of saying: Je veux baise-toi.” 

Tony knows his accent is terrible, it was purposeful, but when Loki grabs him by the hand and drags him out of the cafe, he doesn’t much care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brace yourselves guys. Buy your favorite ice-cream or something. Just have it on hand. Trust me.


	64. Chapter 64

When it ends it ends the only way it reasonably could. 

In fire. 

When Obadiah Stane knocks on their door with a grim face in an even grimmer black suit Tony’s sense of the dramatic bays and howls at him. 

Everything’s going to change again. 

And the thought that even this, this perfect haven in which he is free to love and be loved in return, has to end, makes his heart physically ache. 

“I wanted to give you time, Tony.” Says the man. “Time to outgrow this phase.” The way Obadiah says phase make Tony angrier than anything ever has, but there is a weight to the man’s stance and shoulders that makes Tony think better of tearing him apart. 

Something has changed. 

And only Obadiah can tell him what. 

“May I come up?” 

“No.” Says Tony before he can think and he isn’t sure who he’s protecting exactly, but even in the wake of this he will not have this man taint his and Loki’s sanctuary, above the streets of Paris. 

He only wants the memory of love and flesh and laughter etched on the counters and second hand furniture and wooden floors. 

At the end of this, there will be a piece of him untainted by tragedy, even if it can only be this. 

“There’s a cafe nearby.” Says Tony and wordlessly leads them a ways away, purposefully picking a busy and out of the way place that he doesn’t remember he and Loki ever frequenting. 

They sit down and Tony orders his cafe au lait and makes small talk with the server to stall, and Obadiah Stane looks at him, for the first time faintly impressed. 

“I always forget how good your French is.” He says and a part of Tony is desperate for that praise from the man whose as close to a father figure as he’s ever had. 

“But Tony, I, like I said, I wanted to give you time.” 

Obie’s voice is soft. “You’re a kid. And you’re brilliant and you’re lost and your dad could have done a lot better by you, but you’re not this person. You’re a good person, and I knew that if I gave you enough time you’d eventually remember who you are, and come back to us.” 

Tony drums his fingers against the table. 

“And if Howard didn‘t like it, I’d wait until he was just drunk enough to recover from his hangover and be sensible, and then he’d be all about it.” 

Tony hates this. He can feel the shadow of a guillotine blade resting like a lead weight on the back of his neck. 

“But that time’s gone, I...Tony...I’m so sorry.” 

Obie opens up his briefcase and pulls out a newspaper. 

“Multi millionaire industrialist Howard Stark and wife Maria Stark killed in plane crash?” His voice is flat and when he looks at the pictures of his mother and father who he hadn’t spoken to in over a year, smiling their best paparazzi-ready grins on top of the photo of smoking wreckage he feels sick. 

“No.” Tony says quietly. 

“Tony I--” 

“Howard Stark has left his empire to his estranged and...and...notoriously unpredictable son, Tony Stark?” 

Obadiah reaches across the table to slip the newspaper out of his hands. 

“I’m sor-” 

No. 

And with that Tony’s gone, wrapped in the streets of Paris as if their are wings on his heels which can carry him faster and farther than the hand of death can reach. The city of love and light and early fall turns to ash around him.


	65. Chapter 65

Of course it is Loki who finds him. 

Tony’s been standing in Notre Dame for hours, lost in a crowd and candles and smoke and atmosphere and the prismatic scale of light shed by it’s windows, he feels a hand on his shoulder and the next thing he knows he’s back in their little apartment between the streets of Paris and the sky. 

When he collapses against Loki he does it with wracking heaving sobs. Loki holds him silently and kisses him softly in all of the places which make him feel warm and safe and home. 

On top of everything else, Tony realizes that there will be no more of this, no more Loki at all, and he cannot begin to imagine surviving it. 

“Your uncle explained it to me.” Says Loki softly and Tony has never felt so strongly compelled to be honest before. “You’ve got to go back to Brooklyn, help with funeral preparations for your grandparents.” Tony doesn’t know where to start. 

It all just hurts. 

“But I don’t want to go!” 

“And I don’t want you to leave.” 

“Then don’t let me.” 

Loki holds him closer and buries his nose in his hair and Tony thinks that he can feel the fissures where his heart is breaking. 

“Don’t you know what they say, Tony?” 

“Chain me to the bed.” 

Loki raises an eyebrow. 

“Tie me down. Hold me hostage. Don’t let me go.” 

Loki’s breath catches. 

“Please!” 

“They say, if you...love something, let it go. And if it comes back, of its own accord, than it was always yours.” 

“Well I say if you love something tie it to the headboard and don’t let it forget that it’s yours for a fucking second because everyone leaves and everyone moves on and before you know it you’ve had all the time in the world to realize that no one loves like you do and the only fucking moment you had to feel like you’re not going to live and die alone and numbing yourself sane is gone, and you are back to square zero with a hole the size of a human hand in your chest.” 

The silence hangs on the edge of a pin and when Loki kisses him it’s fierce and strong and consuming. 

“I told. That fucker.” Loki grits out between kisses that are more like bites. “That I’d have. Your arse.” He grabs it hard enough to bruise and Tony has missed this. He has missed Loki’s reckless enraged domination of his flesh amidst the sweet dream they’d lost the world within. “On a plane. To New York City. In the morning.” 

And in an act of superhuman strength that makes Tony impossibly hard Loki literally tears his clothes from his body like he’s pulling paper out of a notebook. 

Jesus Christ. 

They trade breaths and bites and claws and blood as Loki slides their lengths together. 

“I want you inside me!” Tony gasps. “Baise-moi.” 

“Later.” 

“Baise-moi!” 

“Shut up!” 

And when Loki slaps him across the face Tony groans like his cock’s been stroked. 

“I am going to make you cum in so many ways tonight, Anthony.” Loki growls. “You are going to come apart beneath me in every way that there is. I am going to ruin you for others, beyond repair.” 

“Yes.” 

“When I am through with you, you will not know whether you are in agony are ecstasy and you will not care, because I am the touchstone of both, and you belong only to me!” 

“Do it! Please!” 

As their cocks rub together, sliding through their own precum Tony pants and gasps and twitches and moans long and low and sweet. 

Loki laps them up and watches as Tony cums for the first time that night, grief abandoned in favor of ecstasy and Loki laps that up as well. Sucks him dry and licks his skin clean. 

Tony is halfway into peaceful lassitude when he feels Loki spreading him open on the floor and kneeling between his legs. 

“Loki? What? I Oh...” Tony gasps as that clever tongue snakes it’s way inside him, flicking and probing and tasting only after taking the time to circle his rim and grace it with little puffs of air until he’s wracked with little shivers. 

“You like that?” 

Tony is too shocked by the sudden loss of sensation to answer. 

“You’ll take any part of me inside you, won’t you?” 

Tony’s yes turns to a groan as Loki returns to his previous task, rubbing the hairs on his thighs against the grain as sucks and kisses and scrapes his teeth lightly against Tony’s most sensitive skin. 

Even his tongue is longer than it should be and Tony feels himself opening further and further at it’s behest. He’s quaking. 

“Anything.” Tony’s shaking and he feels arousal beginning to stir and as Loki hovers above him, green eyes burning with the self-congratulatory light of a predator, all he wants is to be touched. 

“Anything. Anything. Anything.” 

When Loki sinks his teeth into his thigh just as he aims a finger right against his prostate Tony screams. 

“That’s it.” Loki coos. “I want you to be nice and loud for me.” 

Tony obeys. 

“Yes, let all of Paris know that you’re getting fucked every which way.” Loki takes his prostate between two fingers and moves them just so and Tony’s body nearly comes off the floor. 

“And isn’t it so, so good?” 

Loki doesn’t even give Tony time to nod. He snakes a third finger into his quivering winking hole and twists and Tony’s gone. 

When he can see again he feels cold and alone and when he looks up in a panic he sees Loki sitting on one of their chairs, fly open and cock in hand. 

“And aren’t they so, so jealous?” He nearly sneers and Tony looks up at him with wide, hazy, lustful brown eyes. 

“You’re going to get me ready, baby.” Says Loki and Tony doesn’t need to be told twice. What remains of his tattered clothing falls away like dead skin as he crawls across the floor and kneels between Loki’s spread legs. 

Tony starts at the base of the massive thing, slicking it with as much spit as possible before slowly moving upwards, savoring the taste and weight as he takes the head as deep as he can and sucks. 

Loki groans. 

“You’re such a good cocksucker.” 

“You taught me.” Tony replies through lowered lashes and Loki’s ‘fuck‘ is impossibly deep and primal. 

“That’s right.” Loki growls and when Tony’s pulled up into his lap he obligingly spreads his legs and tries to immediately impale himself on Loki’s turgid length. 

When Loki physically stops him it’s Tony’s turn to growl. 

“Here’s another lesson for you.” Says Loki smoothly. “When I told you that I was going to ruin you for all of your future lovers, I didn’t mean it literally.” 

Tony can feel Loki’s hands working beneath him to slick himself up and his eyes widen. 

“I don’t need to hurt you to own you.” His voice is hard and unrelenting and Tony’s breath catches. “I don’t need to do anything at all.” Tony feels the head of it against his hole and prepares himself to bare down. “I merely choose to fuck you.” 

And with that he slams inside and Tony’s body goes boneless. He remains dazed and impaled as Loki picks him up, shoves him against a wall, and begins fucking into him as if he means to tear him in half. 

Tony crosses his ankles around the taller man’s hips and sinks his teeth into Loki’s chest in retaliation. 

Loki laughs and Tony bites him again. 

Their rhythm is quick and rough and it seems to sprawl on endlessly. Tony screams himself hoarse long before Loki’s finished with him. He continues fucking him long after he’s cum and when Tony finds himself sprawled in their bed, he doesn’t know how he’s gotten there. 

Loki seems to have foregone his usual post coital smoke in favor of holding him, and Tony couldn’t complain if he wanted to. 

For a moment he is weightless and spent and wholly consumed. And he is fighting sleep when Loki kisses his brow. 

“Sleep, darling.” He whispers. “I’ll be here when you wake.”   
Tony holds one of Loki’s larger hands between both of his in a crushing grip until sleep finally claims him. 

“What in the name of all that has ever lived and died am I going to do without you, Tony Stark?” Loki whispers to the universe at large. 

An answer is not forthcoming. 

Loki only snakes his free hand to the boy’s chest, and he feels the swirling cold radiating above his heart. 

“There are horrors innumerable and unnamable in the spaces between spaces.” 

It grows stronger by the day. When Loki touches it he feels almost drunk on it. 

“And he has the heart of one who will see them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um


	66. Chapter 66

When Tony wakes up to a room bathed in light and the smell of strong black coffee his first reaction is bliss. 

The second is sheer panic. 

“Hello darling.” Says Loki from across the bedroom and Tony feels so grateful that he’s still even there that he cannot speak. 

“When does my flight leave?” He finally gasps and something in Loki’s eyes darkens, but he keeps his hands busy. 

“Four hours. We’ve got time for breakfast and well...” 

They both lose themselves for a second in between maintaining the act that they don’t want to cry and scream and weep, and pretending to be busy with pouring coffee and picking at the seams in sheets. 

“Why do you never wake up next to me?” Tony blurts and Loki frowns. 

“What? Am I supposed to lay next to you and shiver for hours while you hog the blankets, you layabout?” 

It is jovial and it is forced and Tony wants none of it but if these are to be their last hours together, then Tony will not spend them asking every question he has ever had. 

There are many secrets which he and Loki keep from one another. There are things which they will never tell each other. 

And there are many reasons why. 

“Hey,” Loki says and he slumps down beside Tony, holding out a hand before he slips into a mire of despair from which he cannot escape. “I’ll make you a deal.” 

His words are casual but his tone is feather light and something about it kicks Tony’s sense of ‘important moment of change‘ straight in the balls. 

“Next time I’m in New York City, you put me up for the night, and I’ll grant you your morning cuddles.” 

“Who said I was after cuddles? I never said anything about cuddles--” 

“You’re blushing baby.” 

“Fine. It’s a deal.” 

They shake on it and neither let go of the other’s hand. 

They share a kiss, soft and long and sweet. 

“You better cuddle the stuffing out of me.” 

“Oh, I plan to.” 

Tony gets dressed in silence as Loki sips his coffee and watches him with burning intensity. 

“So, you plan to come visit then?” Tony tries not to sound too hopeful and Loki wants to stop him from getting on that plane more than he’s wanted anything in the longest of whiles. 

“Tony, I am going to be honest with you,” Tony stops tying his shoes and looks Loki dead in the eyes. “I would not change our time together for anything in the universe. I would not erase or trade a second of it in the name of a single thing, but in your presence there were...some things which I needed to attend to which were not attended to, and I must take care of them.” 

“Ever mysterious, you are.” 

“Trickster god.” Says Loki with an easy shrug and Tony laughs just as easily, though he wants to scream. “But, I will not be around for awhile, is what I mean to say.” 

“How long will you be gone?” Asks Tony and Loki frowns. 

“I only wish I knew.” 

They hang in suspension and suddenly Tony’s cab has come. The driver honks and wails from the street and Tony feels like his life has become some sort of awful horror film. 

Then he realizes that Obadiah Stane is in that cab. 

It looks like the last stollen moments he had expected to have with Loki had been taken out back and shot in the head. 

“I--” 

“Shhh.” Says Loki and he kisses Tony’s forehead and eyelids and cheeks and nose and the hollows above his lips. 

Tony clings to him as the cab continues to wail. 

“I don’t want to do this alone.” Says Tony and Loki silently walks him down out of their own tiny apartment, and down the stairs to the very front of the building. 

“I can’t do this alone, Loki.” 

Loki places a small suitcase into his hand and kisses him again, softly, his fingers trembling. 

“Lok--” 

When the door shuts on him Tony wants to scream. He wants to kick and punch it to splinters, but then it occurs to him that he is no longer Loki Lauff’s lover, but Howard Stark’s Estranged and Notoriously Unpredictable Son. 

And at 19 the CEO of the most prestigious and feared weapons tech company on planet earth. 

Tony runs a hand over the old wood of the front door before walking up to the curb and getting in the cab. 

“You’re doing the right thing.” Says Obadiah Stane and Tony nods. 

"I guess I am." He grits out between clenched teeth. 

Paris flies by him in a blur. 

“I guess.” He says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came so close to being the end of The Age of Frost. You don't even understand. Like this was literally the actual end of this story for about three months. It isn't anymore, so don't worry (or worry more maybe), but it totally almost was.


	67. Chapter 67

Tony isn’t back in New York City for an hour before he’s disappeared. 

After a plane ride during which Obadiah tries to be comforting but only manages to make Tony hurt in ways he’s never known before, Tony nearly falls out of the plane, feeling like all of his blood had been drained. 

At Obie’s suggestion that a ‘haircut would make him feel just like his old self‘ after they get through customs Tony breaks. 

With tears in his eyes he begs a bathroom break at JFK and makes a run for it. He walks out of the airport sobbing and the second he hits the street he’s gone. He walks the streets for hours and hours and hours, long past dark, wandering about like a ghost in a city of the dead. 

The last thing on earth he wants is to go back to his father’s house, and his body has long since numbed past pain, so he walks on and on and on, bumming cigarettes and running his fingers through his hair until it hangs lank against his face. 

The fall chill bites at him as he walks and walks, stopping at a little diner he remembers. 

Before he’d set off on his own personal downward spiral he used to go ‘slumming’ there, as the people who were supposed to be his friends had said. 

Tony hadn’t thought of any of them in over a year. 

The knowledge that he’ll be stuck dealing with people like Jake or Julian or whatever the hell that dick that had drugged him’s name had been on a permanent basis, kind of makes him want to ‘slum’ it permanently. 

He sits in the cafe for hours ordering cups of coffee, staring at them blankly until he’s forgotten that they’re there, and then downing the foul tepid fluid in pained gulps. 

He’s distracted from his daze when a pack of marlboros slide right under his nose, only to slide right back into space. 

“Tony.” 

Tony knows that voice and his head snaps up so quickly that the audible crack of his vertebra cause a moment of silence in the small diner. 

Pepper looks like she always does, pale and ginger and exquisite. Only now she looks tired. 

Tony wonders what time it is. 

“Pep-per?” His voice cracks and she frowns with concern. He wants to reach out and touch her suddenly, Loki had trained him to be as tactile as a pet cat, and not a day away from him and Tony feels touch starved and hollow. 

He feels his questing hand drop against the table as if it’s made of led. 

When Pepper reaches across and takes his hand suddenly the months of their traveling and his impossible longing and her worrying after him and trying to take care of him just because he was him and not because he was one of Howard Stark’s things flood him with an entirely different kind of grief. 

“Pepper, I...god. I-I’m so sorry.” 

“Good.” 

Tony’s mouth hangs open. 

“Then again, if Loki Lauff allowed me to hitch a ride to Neverland I don’t think I’d have stopped to kiss you goodbye either.” 

Her hands are soft and not demanding in any way and Tony doesn’t know what to do with her simply friendly touch. 

He knows now that he’ll never get to kiss her, goodbye or otherwise. 

Where before the tension between them was thick and merely waiting for the moment to crack, now she is all business. 

“But, you being a raging bag of dicks isn’t what’s important right now.” 

Tony cringes. 

“What’s important is that we get you home, and we get you safe. You’re not ok, you shouldn’t be alone wandering at 4 am.” 

“It’s 4 am?” 

“Yeah, man.” Says Pepper and she looks even less impressed than she had before. 

“So, you’re working for Obadiah now?” Tony grinds out after a long heavy pause and Pepper sighs. 

“For now.” She says. “But, as the youngest CEO in history, I’m sure you’ll be needing a whole team of PA’s, so when that job opens up I’d be thrilled to do you a favor and take the demotion.” 

This isn’t the Pepper Tony remembers, at all. It’s like she was a kid and over a matter of weeks she somehow went through some kind of weird mental puberty and became the savvy bitch Tony was supposed to be groomed to be. 

“What the fuck happened to you, Pep?” 

“Get a solid eight hours and we’ll do a little Q&A, all right?” 

Tony hates everything. 

“Cross my heart, Mr. Stark.” 

Tony is suddenly too tired to correct her. Hearing her call him that is like a kick in the balls. 

He nods. 

“There’s a car outside.” 

When Pepper leads Tony out by the hand like a kindergartner on a school trip he doesn’t protest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit this is almost over I have been doing this for a year I don't know what to do anymore


	68. Chapter 68

Howard Stark’s apartment had been picked and designed by someone else, and it literally felt like it had fallen out of the pages of a magazine and never belonged to anyone. It felt more like a hotel room than any place he’d been with Loki. 

Wherever he’d been with Loki just felt like home. 

Tony hates this. 

He feels tears start to crystallize in the corners of his eyes and a full-out breakdown is derailed entirely by a pointed throat clearing. 

He rolls over in the direction of it to see Pepper sitting at his bedside in a pencil skirt and Led Zeppelin T-shirt, legs crossed and hair twisted behind her head in loud geometrically printed chopsticks. 

“Excellent timing.” She says and this chick is not his Pepper and Tony finds himself inclined to hate her. 

“Get dressed,” She says and Tony only does so because resisting her would be too much effort, and he feels like he possibly owes her everything ever. After sliding on whatever he pulls out of his closet he walks from the bedroom into the large living room. He sees Pepper sitting on the sofa and sits on the chair across from her. 

“What do you want for breakfast.” 

“Coffee, I guess.” Says Tony quietly. 

Pepper looks at him with obvious concern. 

“No food?” 

Tony sighs. He honestly can’t imagine eating ever again. 

Pepper picks up the phone in on the end table next to her and tells someone to get her two coffees. She sounds professional and appropriately grateful. 

Tony doesn’t like this at all. 

“So, when, exactly did you go native, Pep?” He snaps, tasting bile. 

“Around the same time you went Rock N Roll Circus.” She says calmly. “It was entirely unplanned, completely by accident, and entirely your fault.” 

“I’m guessing everything is my bloody fucking fault?” 

“It bloody well is, chap.” Says Pepper in a mocking and poor imitation of a brit. “Stop trying to have a fight with me. I won’t do it. I should actually thank you. Now instead of hitching rides till death and squatting I get to be a swank corporate lady pigeon in the new york city skyline. All I gotta do is keep you alive, and I was doing that before anyone paid me. I want to help you, Tony. I really do. You know that, so don’t try to push me away. It’s too late for that. You’re stuck with me.” 

Tony looks from her Led Zeppelin T shirt to her artfully pinned up hair and doesn’t know what to do. Her face is uncompromising and kind. 

“Now, I didn’t get here through any shady means so stop looking like I gave you up to the Russians. I didn’t. All I knew after that concert was that you left without a fucking trace and I was going to report it to the police, but then I remembered what you told me about the paparazzi getting all up on stories like that and making wild accusations, so I tore your whole car apart looking for someone to call, and I found a couple of numbers written on a piece of paper under the mat up front.” 

Tony gulped. He knew exactly what was coming. 

“All I learned at first was that you got a thing for prostitutes.” 

Pepper was obviously wasn’t pleased. 

“But in the middle of all those prostitutes was the number of Obadiah Stane’s private line, and when I got that and told them who I was and what had happened they flew me out here immediately. Apparently they lost you long before LA and I was the only lead in a case of crazy dead ends. Stane was crazy impressed with the way I handled it, and I was able to convince him that you’d need a friend round when they got you, and that I’d been taking care of you, so here I am.” 

Tony is almost in awe of Pepper. 

“The fact that I had to take a pregnancy test before becoming employed at this esteemed establishment, however...” 

Her glare in his direction is familiar and makes him feel slightly warm. 

“I’ve seen toilets in truck stops in a better place than your fucking reputation, Tony. I haven’t met a single person working for the company that isn’t terrified of you. You’d think you were a serial killer or something. Half of Stane’s job these days is stopping people from jumping ship now that you’re the captain. I didn’t even know the shit storm I was walking into when I signed up for this. The Tony I knew was a genuinely decent goof-ball with some problems. The Tony that was here apparently had habits of arson and treason and a whole bunch of shit so terrible that no one will even give me any straight answers, other than that if your dad wasn’t who he was you’d be burning in high security government prison hell right now! You have to start being honest with me I’m going to help you, Tony.” 

“Could you possibly give me a few days to get used to my fucking parents being dead before the interrogation begins!?” 

Pepper shakes her head. “Their funeral is in three days. In that time there’s a lot that needs to be taken care of. I wish it didn’t have to be like this, but...” 

Pepper looks like she’s hurting too and as much as Tony wants to make this the kind of violent screaming argument he’s gotten used to he knows that it will never get there, with Pepper. 

Pepper’s nothing like Loki. 

And she’s not much like him either. 

“What’s the first thing on the checklist, then?” He asks bitterly and Pepper sighs. 

“I went to a couple of the cities you’d been in after the concerts, bribing people and organizations out of their questionable photos of you. Turns out I drive a hard bargain. Mr Stane didn’t want me to go at first, but I was good at it. Didn’t you ever wonder why you weren’t a national disgrace? It was us. We had your back. I travelled around. I asked around. I heard stories, the kind of shit I couldn’t believe.” 

Tony wants to die. 

“I saw the photos too.” 

Tony hates everything. 

“And the first fucking thing we’re doing is getting you to the doctor. God knows what you’ve picked up.” 

“So us faggots are stray dogs, now?” Tony growls. “You gonna put me down, Potts?” 

Pepper smiles. “You are not going to pick a fight with me, Tony. If you and Loki’s relationship didn’t involve a countrywide orgy I’d have planned your wedding myself. You’re not going to the doctor because you moonlighted as a flaming homosexual. You’re going because you’re a self-destructive idiot that just happened to be moonlighting as a flaming homosexual.” 

“Get bent.” Says Tony, but it doesn’t even sound vicious. Pepper doesn’t mince words, and despite those words cutting him to the quick he’s missed her and how much she doesn’t fuck around or make everything the kind of mystery that Sherlock Holmes couldn’t even solve. 

“The coffee’s being sent to the car. We’re heading out.” Says Pepper as she rises. Tony follows her blindly. 

They are almost at the door when she wordlessly hands out a jacket to him. 

Tony takes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dadadadadadadadadda boing


	69. Chapter 69

Tony doesn’t want to leave the car and he’s got no shame so he waits until he’s sent Pepper into the pharmacist's to get his new prescriptions to start to cry. 

He’s gotten a shot of penicillin already and has some pills on the way and he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’d kind of wanted to cry in the Doctor’s, but he wasn’t a kid and he wasn’t about to go down that road if he didn’t absolutely need to. 

With every prod and poke and huff and question he had to skew just enough to stop the doctor from looking any more scandalized, he felt just a little more wretched. 

Tears had only been a faint itch behind his eyes and in his throat and it’s the damndest thing that does him in. 

Before she got out of the car Pepper had given him a long look and informed him, as softly as possible, that their next stop was a barber. 

And that had really been it. She’d looked at him for some kind of confirmation that he’d registered her words and he hadn’t given it so she’d gotten out of the car. Tony smashed his head against the inside of the car window with the full intention of smashing both it and his skull to pieces. 

His skull’s still flush against the glass and snot and tears are dripping down his face when suddenly the car starts moving. 

Pepper’s hand wraps around his and Tony doesn’t respond much be he doesn’t rebuff her kindness either. 

Traffic is heavy and the car’s barely moving and the tears won’t stop. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers again and again and again. 

Pepper squeezes his hand. 

“Things were bad before.” She says. “But they’re gonna be better now.” 

“I don’t see how.” Says Tony and it’s not sarcastic or doubtful or cruel. 

It’s just honest. 

“You didn’t have me.” She smiles. “And I’m gonna take care of you.” 

If there’s one thing that Tony’s always hated its feeling like someone is trying to take care of him or impose their will on him or get him to do stupid things he has no desire to do. The concern of others has always made him itch. 

But he can’t help but smile back at Pepper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like five chapters left I believe. I promise it does actually wrap up sort of.


	70. Chapter 70

Two days later Tony’s at his parents’ funeral reading the speech off the cards which Pepper delivered him. He’s got a new suit and and new short haircut that makes him ache a little every time he tries to twirl it between his fingers out of habit. He reads robotically while shaking with grief and it is a pitiful site. He looks thin and haggard and positively ghostly in the flashing bulbs which mob him on his way to and from the funeral. 

Tony honestly doesn’t even know what he read or what he would have said about his parents otherwise. He figures that he’ll visit the grave if and when he has something to say, though he doesn’t know what he could really say to either of them that didn’t sound a fuck of a lot like: 

Knowing who I am and what I am, after watching me fuck with Russian Intelligence and leave them insulting messages for fun using the tech I stole from your labs, after throwing me out because of what I did to mom, after abandoning me when I couldn’t be what either of you really fucking wanted, why would you do this to me? You know that I can’t run this company. Why would you do this to me? 

Tony shakes at the pulpit in front of hundreds of people and can almost feel them all remarking at his thin skin and thinner body and the bags under his eyes. All of them already anticipating his imminent and spectacular failure. 

Tony wants so badly to prove them wrong. 

But he also wants to sleep for a hundred years. 

“... and they’ll be missed.” He finishes and everyone claps. Tony doesn’t know how he’s supposed to sit there quietly for the rest of the ceremony, but he knows that half of the people here only came because they are banking on Howard Stark’s ‘estranged and notoriously unpredictable son‘ starting some kind of orgy in the pews or escaping only to light something on fire. 

He sitting down next to Obadiah, sitting too close to Pepper might cause people to talk, but he’d do anything to have her near. He can’t even find her in the swarm of black-hatted roaches and he feels like he’s drifting at sea with the salt slowly sloughing off his skin. 

Obadiah’s given up tying to console him. He’s a business man first, everything else second, and Tony can’t even bring himself to resent the man for having no idea how to deal with him.

His tux is rubbing him raw. 

He needs a cigarette. 

Before he knows it he’s being swarmed with ass-kissers seeking to pile their condolences on his chest. 

Tony nods until he feels like a bobble head with a warn out spring jonesing himself dead for nicotine. 

He wanders around in a daze of platitudes and exhaustion until a girl he doesn’t recognize pounces on him. 

“Oh Tony!” She wails and Tony hardly moves. He hardly even breathes. Then suddenly the hug has continued longer than it should have and she’s making sobbing noises into his neck but Tony can’t feel any tears. 

She’s saying something that sounds sad but then suddenly Tony feels one of her hands grabbing his ass. 

He springs away from her and she nearly falls over, her heels being higher than she can really handle. 

“My fucking parents are dead. Could you wait three fucking days before trying to grab my ass?” 

The silence around them is crushing and Tony wishes that he were dead instead. 

“I just wanted to comfort you! Because everyone knows that you’re a fuck up and Stark Industries is as good as scrap metal now!” 

She’s blonde and beautiful and Tony can smell the crazy on her. She also seems somewhat familiar and Tony wonders if he fucked her at some point. 

“Yeah, well not all of us find groping comforting, darling. Go peddle you wares elsewhere.” 

Tony swears that when she slaps him across the face it happens in slow motion. 

Pepper leads him out of the church and into a car and he’s too busy wondering why this shit always happens to him to fight her. 

He hadn’t even fucking done anything this time. 

“Who the fuck was that even?” He croaks out as he notices how hard Pepper is trying not to look entirely disapproving. 

“Patti Denholme.” Sighs Pepper. 

“Who the fuck is that?” 

“Mr. Stane wanted to talk to me. I’ll meet you back at the apartment, ok?” 

She shuts the door before Tony can respond and he knows that he’s going somewhere, but it definitely isn’t back to his father’s old apartment. 

Tony starts by picking a random intersection and telling the driver to leave him there. He gets out and promptly throws his suit jacket and tie at a homeless person. 

The old man catches it with a grin but Tony doesn’t see it. He then walks around to the back of a dancehall that’s just opened up to staff be readied for the evening and makes certain to look like he belongs. Either the two people who he passes recognize him and are too starstruck and shocked to say anything, or his ruse works. He makes his way to a coat closet. 

He manages to find four dollars on the floor, mostly in change, and a ten in the pocket of a long plaid trench, which might actually be a woman’s coat. It won’t really go far at the bar. He figures it’ll swing him a bottle of something though. 

Tony puts it on and immediately feels more at home than he’s been since Loki. 

Tony feels the urge to crumble to the floor, but now that he’s got the money and the coat he figures he might as well go somewhere. 

He walks out of the front doors and hits the street. He scowls as he tries to stick his hand in the pockets only to realize it doesn’t have pockets and balls the cash up in one fist and holds onto his change for dear life in the other. He sees a small diner a few blocks down. The sign has so many letters missing that Tony can’t even tell what it’s supposed to be called and he already feels more at home than he has in a while. 

Inside the floors are sticky and there’s only three other patrons. There’s only one waitress and she looks to be the wrong side of ten billion, and curled up in a booth is an older black woman with unintentionally blue hair. He seats himself in a tattered booth that he swears sticks to his pant legs. He’s nearly managed a solid stare into space for ten minutes when the old waitress waddles over and breaks his trance. Tony can hardly understand her when she talks, and when he grinds out the word ‘coffee’ in her general direction she can’t seem to understand him either. 

They go back and forth, both growing increasingly irate in a conversation that feels a lot more like monopoly when a beautiful girl ends what might have turned into an all out fistfight. 

“Quiere café.” She says and Tony suddenly remembers that he can actually speak Spanish and smacks his head against the table. The girl and the old woman converse for a little while and Tony stares out into the grey street, where it’s started to rain and people are doing their best to shuffle out of it. There’s a little girl with a mess of braids trying to escape from her mother and dance under the overflowing gutters and Tony’s kinda rooting for her a little. 

“Hey.” 

Tony figures that if maybe he looks out the window long enough the little girl will get away and whoever’s trying to get his attention will go away. 

“You know, I almost didn’t recognize you with the short hairs.” 

That’s enough to get his attention and Tony turns back to the impending possible shit storm before him with a sigh. 

“Nice to see you too, Tony.” 

It’s the girl that solved his communication breakdown with the waitress. She’s got miles of smooth caramel skin and a long mane of pin straight honey brown hair. Her eyes are like melted chocolate and she’s wearing a blue jumpsuit that’s low-cut enough to be entirely distracting. 

Tony’s playing nice before he can stop himself. 

“You’re going to have to forgive me, I forget a face, but I never forget a name.” 

“I think you mean the other way around.” She says but Tony knows at that moment that he can have her if he wants her, because its more about how you say than what you say and her accent is caressing language like she can milk a load out of it. 

Tony’s cock twitches and he wonders how long it’s been since he last had sex. 

“Don’t tell me what I mean, dollface.” 

“Then mean what you say.” 

There’s laughter in her eyes and Tony knows that if he wasn’t the world’s biggest absolute fuck up he could probably have some beautiful babies with this chick, or at least fall in love with her or some shit like that. 

“I don’t think you’d like that.” 

“But I want it.” 

Her voice is deep and Tony congratulates himself for being totally right about how much he could fuck her forty seconds ago. 

“I want to fuck you in the bathroom.” He says before he’s thought about it and her lazy smile makes something warm curl in his belly. 

They shamelessly walk into the men’s together and it’s filthy and eeking gross yellow light and Tony snarls as they collide. He savagely grabs her hips and presses them flush together so he can feel the weight of her full breasts. 

Her jumpsuit is half off and her naked back is flat against the graffiti of the stall as he fucks into her with everything he’s worth. 

She’s moaning and keening and hot and tight and sweating and biting and kissing and he’s halfway to cumming when he realizes that he’d rather be doing almost anything else. 

“Don’t...inside me.” She says between gasps and Tony pulls out and dumps her onto the floor after a few more thrusts. 

As he shoots his load into the backed up toilet he feels like he’s been stabbed. He holds his spent cock as ribbons of cum shoot into whatever unrecognizable foul shit has been gestating in the toilet. 

“Tony...” 

The girl begins and before she can finish Tony’s tucking himself back in, zipping up, and exiting the bathroom stall. 

He stops to get the crumpled money he left on the seat of his booth before bolting out of the diner. He can hear people yelling at him and doesn’t stop to listen. 

He knows he’s an asshole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah. Two more after this I think and then this puppy will be put to bed.


	71. Chapter 71

Tony’s halfway to blind drunk and mostly out of money when Pepper finds him sweaty and covered in hickeys and wearing a woman’s jacket in the kind of bar that only criminals go to. Literally, half the Italian mob goes there on the regular. 

Tony knows that of course and went in with the plan of getting blind drunk and picking a fight with one of them, as it was the kind of fight which would most likely end in his incredibly timely death. 

Fortunately, Pepper managed to find him when he was only halfway to blind drunk. 

Unlike Tony however, she doesn’t enter alone and before Tony can say anything, the two big guys she’s come with have picked him up and are hauling him out of the bar. 

“Come on!” Tony Slurs, grasping blindly at nothing. “Cool it guys, this isn’t funny!” 

They disentangle him from his stool. 

“I get the joke! Hahaha!” 

Tony’s kicking just enough to be an annoyance and they nearly drop him. 

“Don’t do any permanent damage. It might get me fired.” 

“Yes Ms Potts.” 

They heft him up like a half-empty sack of grain and start to head out of the bar. Pepper follows behind. 

“Boyfriend?” Asks an old man with a cigar in each hand as Pepper trails behind them and she stops to look at him. He’s so wreathed in smoke that she can hardly make out anything other than the heinous green color of his suit. 

“Thankfully no.” She says. “I’m on the clock.” The old man toasts to her and the clicking of her heels is lost in the noise of the patrons. 

The men slide Tony into the company car and Pepper gets in next to him. He flops on top of her and Pepper can’t find the heart to push him off, even though he smells like he hasn’t bathed in a week. 

“You smell good.” He says and Pepper feels tears crystalize in the corners of her eyes. 

“Thank you Tony.” She says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boop


	72. Chapter 72

“WHO THE FUCK WAS HERE LAST NIGHT!?” 

Tony awakes with a start and quickly realized two things: 

1)He should be hung over and he’s not. 

2)His entire room is covered in scattered pages of some kind of schematics. 

He’s also spent the better part of the last week drinking alone in his bedroom or with prostitutes in his bedroom or unconscious in his bedroom. 

“And why for the love of the fucking christ is it thirty fucking below in here!?” 

Pepper’s still screaming and Tony looks down at the piece of paper attached to his left hand. 

I hope you enjoy my present, darling. Since I couldn’t stay you still owe me that night in the big apple, however. I think this makes it a weekend. 

Is all it says and it’s signed with red lipstick in the shape of familiar thin lips and Tony starts to laugh hysterically. 

Pepper stops screaming to run over to his side and grasp his forearms. She looks genuinely afraid, like he’s finally snapped, and Tony only laughs harder. 

“Potts,” He manages to wheeze out between gasps of laughter. “Have a car ready to take me to my lab at noon.” 

“What?” 

“You heard me Potts.” 

“Tony, it’s 2:30.” 

“Fantastic.” 

Pepper looks less than impressed. 

“A car at 4:30 then.” 

“Tony, if there’s been some kind of security breach it’s important that we know who got in here--” Tony snorts. “--and how they got in so we know what their intentions--” 

“Let’s say that, hypothetically of course, this is an act of goodwill on the behalf of a benevolent party.” 

“Do you know who did this, Tony?” 

“I’m not saying that, I’m just saying that if someone in the wall-paper design world doesn’t get their shit together soon I’m going to be forced into a high-stakes and dangerous life of interior decorating.” 

Tony swears he can see the veins in Pepper’s temples physically throb and he feels a little bit bad. He puts a stiff hand on her shoulder. 

“Hey, Pep, don’t worry about it. If it’s a death ray or something, I won’t make it, but you know I have to take a look at it. And it’s been so long since I took a look at anything. I think I need this.” 

Pepper sighs. “I know Tony, I know.” She places her hand on top of his and the novelty of the casual touch makes him inhale a single sharp breath. “I just wish that for once the most ridiculous thing imaginable didn’t happen with you right in the middle of it.” 

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one.” 

“You love it.” 

Tony wants to be angry but he also can’t deny but he’s got a taste for the ridiculous and bombastic and colossally stupid. 

Hearing it mostly just hurts and Pepper looks almost guilty and Tony really wishes that she would stop that because he knows that she has every right to fucking tear him apart for the rest of their natural lives if she wants. 

“I’ll get the car ready. I’ll be back for you.” She says and quickly walks out of his room. 

“Of course you will.” Tony whispers after she’s gone. 

After a moment of hanging in suspension he springs off his bed and moves toward his paper-covered walls, unsure of what to look at first. Symbols swirl before his eyes and Tony isn’t even sure that some of them are any kind of system he knows. 

His mouth waters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boop


	73. Chapter 73

Tony’s been working at deciphering whatever Loki left for him for twenty-nine hours straight, picking out what he understands from what he doesn’t, when a sudden mood strikes him and he finds himself swaying on his knees in the middle of a tornado of papers. 

Reckless handling of the unusually thick paper has left his hands sliced and even lightly bleeding in places. 

When he presses his hands together a thin trail of blood slides down his wrist and forearm. He breathes in and out and feels like he’s floating. 

“It’s funny that I’d end up here.” Tony whispers. “I mean, even when I was a kid and Maria made me go to church sundays I didn’t get who I was supposed to be asking or thanking for what, and instead I’d just think about, you know, things I could build. Things I could actually do. God never really made any sense to me.” 

Tony nearly sways himself horizontal and has to stop to hold himself up. 

“And you’re not any easier to understand, but I just wanted to try and tell you that I appreciate this thing, whatever the hell it is, because I get that you’re looking out for me. I just don’t get why you couldn’t do it in person. I guess that’s all I’d ask you for, really, if you can hear me at all, and this isn’t just fucking stupid.” 

Tony runs his fingers through his hair. 

“So, don’t make me wait too long, Loki.” 

His voice seems to echo off the walls. 

“I’m impatient and I’m selfish and I’m just a kid right now but if you wait too long I’ll be older than you like ‘em.” 

Tony’s not shaking. 

“I might even be a little grey and we can’t have that.” 

Tony’s not crying

“I don’t have centuries to get my rocks off playing housewife to a bunch of guys named Bjorn and Sven. Maybe I’ve got like fifty, if that.” 

Tony’s not got his arms wrapped around himself. 

“So, don’t be a stranger, Loki.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last chapter and then it's over. Damn.


	74. Chapter 74

When Pepper walks in the following morning and finds him curled up in a pile of notes she doesn’t stop to put down the coffees and box of doughnuts in her hands. 

She gives him a swift little kick in the leg and he starts with a groan. 

“Tony.” 

He groans. 

“Tony.” 

He moans. 

“Coffee and doughnuts.” 

Tony perks up immediately and crawls toward the table where she’s put them. 

He sits next to her and blindly grabs one of the cups. He downs half of it in a single gulp. 

A sarcastic comment is on the tip of Pepper’s tongue when Tony voluntarily reaches for a doughnut. 

And the voluntarily bites, chews and swallows. 

Pepper’s over the moon. 

“Found anything interesting?” She asks and Tony can’t help but launch into an impassioned rant on everything he does and doesn’t understand about the schematics. 

“You pregnant or something?” 

“Did you seriously just stop geeking out just to call me fat?” 

“I didn’t mean it like that. You’re not fat, Potts. You’re glowing.” 

“Glowing?” 

“And maybe a bit deaf too.” 

“Can it Tony.” When she punches him in the arm it’s meant to be playful but Tony thinks he’ll probably bruise anyway. 

“You can it.” He punches back but it’s hardly even a tap. 

“Don’t insult me with your love taps.” She says and this time when she punches him Tony knows he’ll bruise. 

He flicks a piece of his donut at her. 

“Cute.” 

“I know I am.” 

Pepper says nothing, and they sip their coffee in silence for long minutes, without looking at each other. 

“I’ll leave you to it then. Any requests for lunch?” 

Tony drops to the floor and turns back to his notes without a word and Pepper sighs as she makes her exit. 

“Loki, this isn’t how physics fucking works.” Tony grinds out as he scatters papers across the room. 

It’s time to build something fucking incredible. 

\--Fin--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um holy shit, so this is the last one of these. 
> 
> THIS STARTED AS A FIC I PUBLISHED ON TUMBLR. THE FIRST CHAPTER WAS POSTED ON JULY 15TH 2012. BLACKSTORMSSHADOW FUCKING LIKED IT. THAT CRAZY BITCH IS STILL HERE. I WOULD LIKE TO DEDICATE THIS LAST CHAPTER TO HER. OK. SHE'S BEEN COMMENTING ON THIS FUCKING THING AND GIVING ME ENCOURAGEMENT VIA HYPEREMOTIONAL REACTION FOR LIKE A YEAR AND A HALF. 
> 
> Then in august of 2012 this story moved from tumblr to ffnet and was updated there till may of 2012. Uh then it looks like I possibly forgot to update for like a year (oops) and moved it here in April of 2013 with new updates. So in short it's a fucking miracle any of you are still here, because this was a wicked clusterfuck and I am a wicked clusterfuck. Jesus christ. Since I've started writing this thing literally my whole life has changed and I am an entirely different person and holy hell this is just such a massive head trip I can't. I'm a solo musician that writes my own material now, I basically support myself because my parents can't, I've been to London and Callais and Bath and Bruges, I have a fucking english girlfriend now, my mom had and overcame breast cancer, my dad is homeless, I've had every hair color, I am minorly internet famous, i love nicki minaj, i might be living in nyc this summer, i've written two films, and im almost done college. Like this is some crazy fucking shit. All this shit happened while this fic was happening. 
> 
> However, I still love David Bowie just as much as I did when I started this, probably even more so, since my knowledge of his work has extended past his glam years to include his entire discography. 
> 
> David Bowie is literally the only constant in my life. Jesus christ. 
> 
> So, if you've been here at any point since the beginning, take a round of applause for yourselves. You put up with me, and you were generally kind and cool and awesome and amazingly supportive, and no one ever was an asshole despite the fact you had every reason to be, considering my inconsistency as a human. 
> 
> Honestly when I started writing this my mom had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I was with her at a lot of her chemo appointments and she'd just fall asleep with me sitting there and while she was asleep I'd just write this because it was really hard for me to be in that room man. It's like you just sit there with a bunch of people who are dying and the chemo is just fucking all their shit up and some of them are just in agony and its like....well, this was really helpful and you guys really brightened my days a lot while that was going down so I just want to thank you and shit. 
> 
> I really hope that this made you feel something, and that it sticks with you a little, and all that jazz. I hope it got some of you into David Bowie at least a little. He's very important to me. 
> 
> I love you guys. Stay good.
> 
> Peace, 
> 
> Izzy


End file.
